Right, but the author was estimating cost over the lifetime of the vehicle, not possible breakeven down the road if they get bored and sell or some other genera

Right, but the author was estimating cost over the lifetime of the vehicle, not possible breakeven down the road if they get bored and sell or some other general use-case. In the author's case, is the up front cost they included not enough? I guess maybe you're being pedantic and saying everything's value is always important to make measured decisions, but that seems lame in this discussion so I assume I'm glossing over some fundamental fact.