Lots of people buy luxury cars, driving up that figure, so it hardly matters when we are talking about marginal utility for someone, shall we say, disadvantaged. Which I’m guessing you’ve never been?
My annual cost of ownership on my car is like $2500. I can sleep in my car too, and store clothes and food securely in it. Oh and get on demand heat & A/C access.
> Why would I own a 100kWh car, when I only need that range 2x per year, and I could rent that bigger car with my smartphone in 30 secs, for 1/20th of the annual cost?
I just rented a vehicle today (for next week, flying somewhere and need a car while I am there).
The cost to rent the cheapest car on offer is less than half the cost to rent a stationwagon.
A 3 day rental (after I shopped around at 5 different providers at the airport) with limited mileage is about the same as the monthly repayment of that same vehicle, and the insurance excess is not borne by the rental company if I get into an accident or the car is stolen.
It most definitely is not 1/20th the annual cost of the vehicle[1], if you need to go away for the weekend.
[1] The cost is much greater if you want to travel a large distance, because unlimited miles almost doubles the cost.
>Would it be cheaper for me to take a taxi to work every day than drive my own car? Absolutely.
I don't believe that for one second. Assume that the average car costs $523/mo[1] (and if you wanted a lower car payment it's totally possible to get a cheap car with a lower monthly payment). That means the daily cost of the car is $17.19 (523*12/365).
An uber (which is often less than a taxi and way more convenient) costs about $15 to get to work if you live nearby (it would be closer to $30-40 if you lived in the suburbs), and another $15 to get back home (possibly more because of surge pricing, depending on when you leave and local events such as sports games etc). This is assuming you never want to drive to get groceries, visit friends, etc... That's another $10-15 each way, every time.
Sure you don't have to pay for gas but there's no way the <$1/ride increase will account for that. I suppose you might have to pay for parking, but even then you could just buy a cheaper car ($400/mo car payments aren't exactly unheard of) and use the difference to pay for monthly parking.
> but they will generally cost you more money than driving a new Corolla or Civic
OK. Sorry. Your comment annoyed me enough to look up my actual expenses which I've been logging since late 2007, as opposed to hypotheticals.
Between then and now, I've spent $6247 on maintenance and repairs of my cars. Note this includes standard stuff like oil changes and tire replacements. That's about $480 a year. If I extrapolate and go back to when I bought the first car, the estimate would be $8649 since 2003.
How much did I pay for those two cars? $11200 total.
They were reliable. I did two cross country trips in them, without worrying a bit. I didn't rent cars for road trips.
So a total cost in the last 18 years of $19849. Had I bought new, and included standard maintenance[1], I surely would have paid a lot more. A new Camry in those days would already be over $20K. A Civic around $14K.
And of course, insurance on old cars is cheaper. You'd think it's the other way round, but it isn't.
Obligatory disclaimer: Research your used car models before you buy. If you don't, it will cost a lot more.
[1] As a reference, my wife's almost new car has cost $3500 in repairs/maintenance in only 4 years. Yes - even new cars can end up being costly to maintain in just a few years.
I own and drive a car that I bought with the intention of owning and maintaining cheaply, too. I am fairly anal about maintenance, so the costs associated with that are actually inflated from what they could be.
I live in Southern California, apparently a very expensive place to be.
I own a reliable used car that I bought for fairly cheap (sub 5000usd).
I pay about 82 dollars a year for registration, and 85 dollars a month (with a good DMV history) for insurance.
I spend around 1200 dollars on maintenance a year generally, but it has been as low as 500 a year.
So, 2400-2900 a year after the initial purchase. It's more expensive than some places -- but not ourageous.
> not many people correctly calculate the cost-per-use of their car
Cost-per-use by itself is fairly meaningless, costs needs to be compared against value-per-use.
What is the worth of: a visit to my friends; taking a surfboard to the beach; taking a load of firewood to my parents; an emergency 2AM visit to a suicidal acquaintance; taking my nephew and his friends to the skatepark; helping a friend move; picking up a Craigslist chair.
Other transport options usually have severe limitations on availability, flexibility, cost, destination, load, etcetera. Optionality and peace-of-mind has huge value too (i.e. availability if urgently required, even if it happens that nothing urgent comes up).
Last time I mentioned on HN how useful a car is, someone suggested hiring a car instead, which is ridiculously more expensive and extremely inconvenient (at least where I live).
Disclaimer: I am carless at present. The non-financial costs are extremely high.
> is having a car really so essential to holding down a job and accessing services in most of America (etc.) that taking out a loan to acquire a car becomes a necessary evil?
US public transit is really bad outside of major urban areas. In the (medium-sized) city I live in, the only public transit is an unreliable bus service that only covers a few areas of the city with really limited routes. We don't really have taxis, either, and there's enough sprawl that you can't bike to places easily, so your options are to either use uber/lyft for everything and hope you can get a ride reliably, or buy your own car.
Median household income in the US is only around $60k/year [1], which makes it pretty difficult to afford a car without some form of loan. If you save up pretty far in advance, and buy a cheaper used car, it's probably doable, but most people don't want to do that (and if everyone tried to do that, used car prices would likely go up to almost the price of a new car anyway).
> Is there that much of a difference between owning a car and renting a car or using Zip
The cost of owning a car in California including maintenance, fuel, parking, registration, smog check, etc. can be upwards of $10K per year. At least it was for me when I owned a car.
I walk most places and use car share or rent as necessary. I do not spend $10K per year on car share and rentals.
> I think I spend more like $3000/yr for quite a nice car.
You are lucky! Currently the average cost of a new car is ~$48k. Not including fuel, if I priced out a car to around $40k and took a loan at 5% interest for five years. I would already be looking at about $10k a year. Add in insurance, fuel, excise tax, registration, inspection, etc. it would go up to ~$13k for the first 5 years.
My fifteen year old car costs about $6,000 for me this year (with repairs, oil changes, and fuel costs, insurance, etc.). If I lived in an urban environment with good transit like NYC it would cost me about $2k-$3k a year in commuter costs if I traveled by bus and subway every day round trip.
> But, on the other hand, let's say I decide to forgo, say, a $60k car and instead get a still very nice $45k car.
Does anyone else have difficulty understanding why anyone would pay this much for a car? $45k is an order of magnitude more than I've ever paid for a car. Granted, I don't even like cars or driving, but the cars I've owned have been perfectly functional and any mechanical problems they've had still didn't add up to more than $10k.
> Ask yourself. If you own a car today, would getting a 50% discount on taxi rides completely change your behavior. Maybe it would for some at the margins but only at the margins.
Look longer term.
Parking spaces in cities cost ~30k. (And in some cities, a lot more than that). Included with a house, they are still part of the price (no free lunch).
Over a 30 year mortgage, that is 1k a year.
In California, car insurance is almost 2k a year. (Oddly enough, 1.1k in New York State!)
So 3k a year just to have the privilege of driving a car.
Apparently an average new car now days cost 31k. (Which seems insane to me, but that is what people are buying).
Being generous and rounding down a bit, that is another 5k a year.
So now 8k a year, before gas, before maintenance, before any warranty problems, before screws in tires, etc.
If mass transit can replace commuting to work, then weekend outings with automated taxis become very doable. If you give $5 per ride (on par with UberPool, though I realize that isn't profitable), it is 1600 rides a year to break even with owning a car. (Though ownership goes down after the car is paid off, 600 rides a year to break even!)
> Is it possible that living in a city with functioning public transport has sheltered me to the point of naivety?
Yeah, I think so. Financing is pretty much standard in America when you make the decision to buy a new vehicle (and many times, when buying a used vehicle).
The median amount American citizens have in savings is just over $5k:
> why do you even own a car? Renting is pretty cheap if you only need one occasionally.
Because owning a small, cheap car doesn’t cost much and is way more convenient than renting one.
For example. I use my car when I need to transport something I can’t take on my bike. I might need to pick up a package from the nearest parcel point that’s too big or too heavy to transport otherwise. This is about 500 meters from my house, just too far to walk with a heavy package (done that, not fun) but renting a car for a 2 minute trip seems a bit ridiculous.
Or I may want to buy a few crates of beer for a party. A bit inconvenient to get by bike (although possible). This is a 1 kilometer trip. Again, not worth the trouble renting a car for but not a problem if I already have a car anyway.
Or I may need to take some stuff to the recycling center. Again a short trip (2 kilometers).
You may start to see a pattern here. If I had to rent a car for those situations then it would take me more time to pick up and retrieve a rental than for the trip I need it for.
> Okay, so what about used cars? The average used car price in the U.S. is now over $28K (KBB). That's more than I've ever paid for any new car I've ever bought!
That's more than I've spent on buying, taxing, insuring, MOTing, and repairing every car I have owned since I passed my driving test nearly 30 years ago.
We live in an age of ubiquitous information. It has never been easier to learn how to repair things. Why would you pay more than most new cars cost, when you could pick up some shiter for a few hundred, run it until it breaks, and then figure out how to repair it from a couple of youtube videos?
Car ownership (if you mostly just commute/shuttle kids) is not all flowers and roses. There's insurance, accidents, maintenance, parking, fueling, cleaning - not to mention the whole purchase + resell process that can take months.
That's assuming you like driving. I'd rather do better stuff on my commute or simply not commute at all (WFH).
> Also… don’t people just take an Uber or bus if not driving that often?
In big cities, sure, but in most of the US, public transport is over 2x as slow as a car and semi-regular Uber exceeds cost of ownership of a used car. Where I live my total cost to own and operate a lightly used car is under $1000/year. I bought it prepandemic under $5k and could sell it today for around $10k.
> I make six figures, never bought a new car in my life and don't ever plan to. Most I've paid is $19K.
Yes, I'm in your demographic. Most I've ever paid for a car (a rare new one) was 20K. Nearly every car I've had (in over 30 years of having cars), I've bought for less than 10K.
I like cars and driving. But cars are a depreciating asset. Never worth spending much on. Buy the cheapest used one you can find.
I don't own a car and never learned to drive. What's my upfront cost before the $53 incremental cost?
Car ownership begets car ownership.
AAA says car ownership costs $8,558 per year. I'd have a hard time spending that much on public transport.
https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/what-does-it-cost-to...
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