No wonder the auto companies behaved the way they have.
Original on Bundle.com
Hat/tip to Asian Energy for alerting me to this story.
Detroit consistently has the lowest per-capita annual expenditures on getting around by cars ($2,124), both in terms of gas ($755) and auto repairs plus parking ($1,369). Of course, some of this is because there are a lot of people in Metro Detroit are too poor to drive, but that's true of a lot of major cities, so I suspect it just affects the ranking of the region within the bottom 10, not it's being in the bottom 10 in the first place.
Since gas and repairs are so cheap, it's no wonder the U.S. car companies have been sluggish in responding to complaints about gas mileage and reliability; those things are not as big a problem, at least in terms of cost, here in Detroit.
Oh, and to the people on my flist from Austin--congratulations, you live in the most expensive city in the U.S. to keep a car. Every year, gas costs the average Austinite $4,052 (most expensive) and repairs plus parking $6,706 (third most expensive behind Scottdale and Plano) for a total of $10,128. No wonder I've encountered such environmentally conscious Austinites online; being green pays off!
As for how this fits the theme of saving, I've had this tab open for a week. I've certainly been saving it!