Only if you assume that there are no alternatives to your personal car that can take care of that usecase. For example, I don't own a car despite needing to move heavy objects once or twice a year. I simply rent something, or ask a friend. That's much cheaper than owning something that I only need rarely.
Cars are daily-use items for most people, so not in the frame of discussion. Unless you only drive your car like once a year or something, in which case yeah you might be better off renting.
Probably only in areas where parking of personal vehicles is expensive and in situations where people don't care about customizing vehicles/storing things in them. Most of the cost of a vehicle is typically miles, not time, at least if you buy them and eventually sell/trade them in. I live near a major city(though not in it) and I can't imagine getting rid of a personally owned vehicle.
My wife is an asset, not a liability or an expense.
For the rest, it depends on how much you're going to use it. A boat or a plane (or an RV), you're likely to use less than you project you will at the time you're thinking of buying one, so it's easy to get suckered into buying something that you won't use enough to justify owning. But you probably know fairly accurately how much you use a car, unless you just made a significant lifestyle change.
And I suspect that most people who own cars use them much more heavily than you suspect when you say that renting should be the default.
If niche situations like those are the only ones this person needs a car for, it might be better for them to rent a car for situations like those, rather than keep and maintain a vehicle full time. Still reducing car use by a lot even if it's not getting rid of it "entirely".
Unless they're actually using it for its intended purpose it is almost certainly cheaper to own a small efficient vehicle and simply rent something else if you need it.
I don't think we're disagreeing. I do need a car to go anyplace. But even if I only used it on weekends, I'd almost certainly own one because of, as you say, the friction associated with renting something.
That's certainly an option. Depends on your requirements and how much you use the vehicle. Renting does have some friction associated with it but, if you're only going to use a car a couple weekends a month, don't have dedicated parking, and don't need/want anything special, it may well make more sense to rent.
I think it can be easy to overestimate your requirements for a car.
If you mostly use your car for a ten minute drive to work, but twice a year need to drive several thousand kilometers, it may be tempting to optimize for the latter (in terms of size, comfort, velocity), whilst it may be cheaper overall to optimize for the former and hire a vehicle for the latter.
The vast, vast bulk of things that people own they use a small percentage of the time. To be sure, cars are expensive, their storage may be expensive in some locations, and at least some people are fine with just renting a generic car. But just observing that something isn't in use a high percentage of the time doesn't really tell you anything about whether it makes sense to own vs. short-term rent.
Between Zipcar and day-rentals, moving heavy things things or randomly taking a trip are trivial.
I don't have a garage, so if I bought a car, I'd likely have to go walk a few blocks to it. When I rent one, the "extra hassle" is I spend a minute on a phone app reserving it first.
I don't see it as a barrier, and at least at my use, way cheaper than a car. But the real gain is not dealing with parking, moving for street cleaning, parking tickets, broken windows, etc.
Indeed. As you carry on in that direction, hiring a car when necessary may become much more attractive compared to the upkeep on a car you only use occasionally.
Not quite, it depends how often you need to travel long distances and what the other options are for that travel. If you only need to drive 100 miles four times a year and otherwise have zero everyday commute costs because you ride a bicycle to work then renting a car four times a year is almost certainly a better option than buying a car just for those trips.
Additionally, if there is frequent and reliable train or bus service to your destination that may be a better option than driving. I know several people who don't own cars but travel 100+ miles via bus on a regular basis. On the other hand, I travel 100+ miles regularly but buses and trains don't go to where I am going.
(There's people who justify buying a truck because they need to haul stuff twice a year at the most. Renting a truck twice a year is almost guaranteed to be a better option financially. That being said, if you want a truck because you like trucks, that's also a perfectly valid reason to buy one.)
I own three cars. One is my dad's old Vanagon. I haven't had the heart to sell it, and it is useful a few times a year for camping, scuba diving, or hauling. I probably should replace it with a trailer for those needs, but I haven't yet. It cost me $0, registration for it is about $120/yr, and it doesn't bump up my insurance all that much. Could I save money by just renting a van when I needed one, sure, but not all that much, and it has sentimental value.
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