This week has been a week of light and enjoyable traffic in Jakarta, Indonesia. Known as the destination for Indonesians to try their luck, during this holiday season, Jakarta is pretty much “empty”. So I set out to do an experiment, one that will inform me of how much I’m saving in fossil fuels.
I have a 2009 Honda Freed, people say that it’s the best bang for the buck when it comes to MPVs. I can attest to that. Anyways, I started the week by filling the gas tank full of its 42 Liters capacity. The cost was Rp. 260.000 + Rp. 19.000 equaling Rp. 279.000.
If you’re wondering why there were 2 cost variations it was because I filled the gas tanks with different octane levels. 40 Liters of Pertamina Premium fuel (88 RON) and 2 Liters of Shell Super fuel (92 RON). The octane ratings were sourced from Wikipedia here. The fuel tank capacity for Honda Freed is 42 Liters sourced from here.
As of today, my fuel efficiency registers at 11,8 KM/liter meaning that I could get 495 KM before the gas tank is empty. Just a week before, I got 9 KM/liter meaning there’s a difference of 2,8 KM/L. The week before the fuel tank was 42 Liters of Shell Super.
Looking from the numbers above, with the current configuration (mix) of fuels and add that with light traffic during the holidays season, I am travelling 495 KM as opposed to last week’s 378 KM. This is a huge difference of 117 KM which translates to almost 3 days of daily use with an average distance of 40 KM/day.
So now I would max out the tank in 12 days which means that every month, the fuel cost for me will be around Rp. 697.500 at 40 Liters of Pertamina Premium (88 RON) @ Rp. 6.500/Liter and 2 Liters of Shell Super (92 RON) @ Rp. 9.500/Liter. Now in comparison to last week, with that kind of fuel efficiency, the cost will be Rp. 1.267.000/month at 42 Liters of Shell Super (92 RON) @ Rp. 9.500/Liter.
To shell out the difference, with the current fuel efficiency, I would save Rp. 569.500 per month on fuel. Let’s multiply that to a year equalling Rp. 6.834.000 a year. Now let’s say that of the 10 million population in Jakarta, 1% of the population (10.000) would have been as fuel efficient as my Honda Freed right now, that will add up to Rp. 68.340.000.000 savings per year! Go figure when at least 10% of the population is as efficient.
That 68 billion Rupiahs (~US$ 6.834.000) would’ve finance a LOT of startups in Jakarta or at least get them on their feet. To put things into perspective, let’s say that there are 500 startups in Jakarta and for each founder/co-founder pair + 8 employees they’d be as fuel efficient. Collect all that money into a fund and we got ourselves an incubator with a funding of 34 billion Rupiahs. Don’t forget that is a yearly recurring number which means every year, the funds will be injected even more so.
This may sound like crazy thing to do but let’s say that each one of us pulled this off and save at least Rp. 569.500/month on fuel (2.8 billion Rupiahs @ 500 startups), put that money into some kind of fund and accelerate the startup ecosystem, we would be looking at a highly productive breeds of startups, entrepreneurs, techies etc pushing the limit of what we can achieve as a collective.
This is as crazy as it sounds but let’s say that for every qualifying startup for the fund receiving a fixed funding of Rp. 150.000.000, we can accelerate at least 18 startups per month. The money is not much but it’s enough to build a product prototype. The incubator would at least have 5-10% of equity seems ok.
Even if the funded startup tanks, it’s money well spent. We get to give back and have a significant impact into the ecosystem. All the startups in the ecosystem is the board.
Again, call me crazy but this kind of cheap ideas are the ones that really matter.