Yeah, I'd not calculated fees or licensing. But other than that I'd still expect the costs of employment to be the highest, by a very large margin. Even if you replaced the entire car yearly, salary is still a higher cost.
Say you expect to spend $30,000 on the car and $20,000 on repairs over a lifetime of 10 years (that's probably well on the high side, say you picked out a shitbox that always breaks down).
At $15/h wage and $50/week in petrol, running the car 40 hours a week (probably on the low side, a lot of taxi drivers I know have 2-3 drivers to a car and would run it more like 120 hours), you're looking at $195,000 in wage/petrol expenses over those 10 years. Almost 4x the total cost of the car.
I agree with you but there's no way the number is that high. My used car cost $3,000 and for three years the total cost of service has been less than $600. Add in $300 per year of insurance and you're looking at a yearly cost of $1,500 tops
This is poor analysis. The writer takes an artificially high number ($9100), divides it by an artificially low number (12,000) and then multiplies it by an artificially high number (30 mph) resulting in just about the highest number possible.
Take a $15,000 car with a nice warranty and good mileage. $3 or so per hour for gas. $200/month for registration, insurance, etc. Maybe you'd get to $10 and hour in costs, but I doubt it. And the car would last for 10 years at least.
Was thinking the same. Have driven cars in the same price range and while maintenance is indeed expensive, I've had a hard time even coming near 1k a year.
$10,000 per year?? That sounds... incredibly high. Insurance is maybe $1k? (I pay ~$650/yr). Fuel maybe another grand? (I've paid ~$750 year-to-date). Repairs can add up, but I don't think I've spent more than $1k in a year on repairs for my 23 year old car, which I bought for $2.5k three years ago.
10k a year only sounds reasonable if you're making payments, and I suspect the amortized cost once you (eventually) sell the vehicle will be much lower.
Granted, this is only my own experience, but considering it's so far off from 10k makes me wonder how accurate that statement is for the general population.
I bought my car 8 years ago for $5000. To date, it cost me around $2000 in maintenance, and I give it $30 a month in gas. Car insurance and registration are roughly $500 a year. Add up all these costs, and on average I pay ~$150 a month to own and operate my car, and that's ignoring the fact I can probably still sell this car for $3000-5000.
Either the math on that website is way off, or a new car is truly the worst investment you can make in your life.
Are you sue those numbers are right? That's 20k per car per year. At such a cost running the cars with no maintenance then buying new cars every break down is cheaper.
I own a car and I need one where I live. But I question that owning a car can cost much less than $4800 a year given insurance, maintenance, gas, fees, and other costs. As a purely financial decision, I'd trade for a driver if that were my real cost.
I think they’re overestimating, but more importantly, they also include fixed costs in those figures, while the parent comment was talking about cost of a marginal minute once you already have a car.
That's not a typo. It really is that expensive because of taxes. That does not include the cost of running the car; fuel, road tax, road pricing, maintenance, insurance and so forth. And you get to use the car only for up to 10 years. If you wish to renew the license for another 10 years then you've got to pony up another 70K (at current prices) and lose the scrap value of the vehicle.
I went without a car for a year a few years ago (personal challenge / to save some money), and had a spreadsheet detailing the cost of ownership for a $10k car. Costs:
* Insurance: $640
* Registration: $51
* Repairs: $200
* Depreciation: $300
* Opportunity cost (assuming a 6% ROI on the $10k): $600
All in cost (excluding gas): $1790
At the time, I was comparing the cost of owning a car vs using car2go, uber, etc for a few trips a month. In the end, it basically just showed that owning a car wasn't all that expensive, and the convenience was WELL worth it.
My current car is worth ~$5k, and these numbers are actually a fairly good representation of my costs over the past few years. I take it in once a year to get the oil changed, and do other small repairs, but otherwise it just kinda.. works. Parking and other costs from living in a city might swing this calculus a bit more, but at the end of the day, you don't need a brand new car, and a modest 10 year old car can drive well, without costing you very much.
Don't forget cost of ownership - $1000 for a car is just the start - after that you need to insure it, service it and pay for the gas - that's probably more per year than the initial price.
reply