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Using Edmunds' True Cost to Own calculator, A 2014 Honda Civic would cost about 5k per year or $416/Mo. If you don't get free parking at work or home or if you

Using Edmunds' True Cost to Own calculator, A 2014 Honda Civic would cost about 5k per year or $416/Mo. If you don't get free parking at work or home or if you have to pay tolls, that cost could increase significantly. A parking spot at a condo could rent for $200-$400/Mo. Parking downtown could be $12-$20 per day. That daily Uber ride sounds like a deal.

vkou 7y ago
> That daily Uber ride sounds like a deal. ... for someone living in a bubble completely disconnected from the planet Earth, where they think that a $400/mo parking spot is 'normal'. Sure, there's a few million people like you out there. Not enough to make Uber break even, though.
- dougmwne 7y ago
  But we're talking about Chicago and this is the very center of normal. There are in fact millions of people who work in the central business districts of the world's most expensive cities. Uber has 75 million riders. If they could actually convince some fraction of those millions of high income urbanites to only use Uber for their transit needs that would yield a disproportionate share of their revenue. It's great that you get free parking, but have you considered that you're living in a bubble too? 6 out of 7 people globally don't even own cars!
  - vkou 7y ago
    I don't have free parking, I pay $150/month for it. But I'm also a wealthy techie who happens to live within spitting distance of a booming downtown. 90% of the people living in my metro area (Seattle) do not pay $150/month for parking (And I'd wager that 99.9% do not pay $400/month for parking). ... And most of those people have commutes of >4 miles. The problem with taxis is that you pay by the mile. You'd be an idiot to drive yourself to work, if you live 2 miles from work, and have to pay through the nose for parking. You'd be an idiot not to drive yourself to work, if you live 15 miles from work, your bus system sucks, and your parking is cheap or free. [1] Doing 15 miles/day in a taxi costs nearly 3x that of doing 5 miles/day in a taxi. Doing 15 miles/day in a car is pocket change, compared to doing 5 miles/day in a car (Or 0 miles/day). Most of your costs with a car are fixed. Most of your costs with a taxi are distance-based. [1] And if we're going to get into a discussion about how the world should value the cost of parking spaces, I will happily point out that what we should have is good bus services, not private chauffeurs.
    - Marsymars 7y ago
      > Most of your costs with a car are fixed. A lot, but typically not most - I drive about 12k km per year (16 km commute 2-3 days per week) and over the past six years my fixed costs have been around $7k. My variable costs have averaged $0.26/km for about $16k total. (All CAD)
BeetleB 7y ago
>A 2014 Honda Civic would cost about 5k per year or $416/Mo. You can see my numbers here for my Civic. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20650989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20650989 Mine was 8 years old when I bought it, but with low miles (about 60K). So I paid a bit of a premium - almost as much as the 2014 Civic on that page. I kept it till it was at 144K miles. Effective cost to own was under $300/mo. Comparing the 2014 numbers with mine: Insurance is almost the same. Repairs + Maintenance was less than a third of their estimate. I didn't skimp at all on this, BTW. I'd be worried if a 5 year old Civic has that many repairs! No financing - paid in cash. Even the 2014 one is a little over $10K. You can just save and pay cash. Their estimate requires a lot more in fuel costs. Mine is about two thirds of their estimate. This can be highly variable (e.g. if you have a long commute).
- dougmwne 7y ago
  One reason they include financing cost in the TCO calculator, even thought it's possible to buy a car in cash is due to the time value of money. Cars do not earn a rate of return, so any money you have in a car instead of investments is sitting idle. You subtracted your sale price from your purchase price, but that only counts the depreciation, not the opportunity cost. For example, let's say you bought your car for 10k, then sold it 7.1 years later for 9k. You have 1k of depreciation. You also have $6,300 at 7%(a typical target rate) in lost income from not keeping that money in a productive asset for those years.
  - BeetleB 7y ago
    Yes, but don't assume I can just put the whole purchase price in an investment. The comparison is between buying and using Uber. In my case it came down to $242/mo vs anywhere from $360 to $480/mo with Uber. It's not clear to me that had I invested the purchase price the 7% return would be enough to make up the difference of $120-240/mo. Certainly not in the first year. I'd have to do the math to see when the breakeven point would be where that initial investment is yielding more than the extra cost of using Uber. There's also the fact that 7% is the market's return, which is over a 30 year span. On a 10 year span, the rate of return is highly volatile, and could even be negative (on the flip side, could be a lot more than 7%). I just ran the numbers, BTW. With my purchase price, invested at 7%, I break even after 7 years (just about the time I owned it) - assuming Uber is the upper bound of $480/mo. At the $360/mo cost I'd break even after 3-4 years. I didn't take into account the sale price, so that would make the breakeven point a little farther.

vkou 7y ago

> That daily Uber ride sounds like a deal. ... for someone living in a bubble completely disconnected from the planet Earth, where they think that a $400/mo parking spot is 'normal'. Sure, there's a few million people like you out there. Not enough to make Uber break even, though.

dougmwne 7y ago
But we're talking about Chicago and this is the very center of normal. There are in fact millions of people who work in the central business districts of the world's most expensive cities. Uber has 75 million riders. If they could actually convince some fraction of those millions of high income urbanites to only use Uber for their transit needs that would yield a disproportionate share of their revenue. It's great that you get free parking, but have you considered that you're living in a bubble too? 6 out of 7 people globally don't even own cars!
- vkou 7y ago
  I don't have free parking, I pay $150/month for it. But I'm also a wealthy techie who happens to live within spitting distance of a booming downtown. 90% of the people living in my metro area (Seattle) do not pay $150/month for parking (And I'd wager that 99.9% do not pay $400/month for parking). ... And most of those people have commutes of >4 miles. The problem with taxis is that you pay by the mile. You'd be an idiot to drive yourself to work, if you live 2 miles from work, and have to pay through the nose for parking. You'd be an idiot not to drive yourself to work, if you live 15 miles from work, your bus system sucks, and your parking is cheap or free. [1] Doing 15 miles/day in a taxi costs nearly 3x that of doing 5 miles/day in a taxi. Doing 15 miles/day in a car is pocket change, compared to doing 5 miles/day in a car (Or 0 miles/day). Most of your costs with a car are fixed. Most of your costs with a taxi are distance-based. [1] And if we're going to get into a discussion about how the world should value the cost of parking spaces, I will happily point out that what we should have is good bus services, not private chauffeurs.
  - Marsymars 7y ago
    > Most of your costs with a car are fixed. A lot, but typically not most - I drive about 12k km per year (16 km commute 2-3 days per week) and over the past six years my fixed costs have been around $7k. My variable costs have averaged $0.26/km for about $16k total. (All CAD)

BeetleB 7y ago

>A 2014 Honda Civic would cost about 5k per year or $416/Mo. You can see my numbers here for my Civic. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20650989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20650989 Mine was 8 years old when I bought it, but with low miles (about 60K). So I paid a bit of a premium - almost as much as the 2014 Civic on that page. I kept it till it was at 144K miles. Effective cost to own was under $300/mo. Comparing the 2014 numbers with mine: Insurance is almost the same. Repairs + Maintenance was less than a third of their estimate. I didn't skimp at all on this, BTW. I'd be worried if a 5 year old Civic has that many repairs! No financing - paid in cash. Even the 2014 one is a little over $10K. You can just save and pay cash. Their estimate requires a lot more in fuel costs. Mine is about two thirds of their estimate. This can be highly variable (e.g. if you have a long commute).

dougmwne 7y ago
One reason they include financing cost in the TCO calculator, even thought it's possible to buy a car in cash is due to the time value of money. Cars do not earn a rate of return, so any money you have in a car instead of investments is sitting idle. You subtracted your sale price from your purchase price, but that only counts the depreciation, not the opportunity cost. For example, let's say you bought your car for 10k, then sold it 7.1 years later for 9k. You have 1k of depreciation. You also have $6,300 at 7%(a typical target rate) in lost income from not keeping that money in a productive asset for those years.
- BeetleB 7y ago
  Yes, but don't assume I can just put the whole purchase price in an investment. The comparison is between buying and using Uber. In my case it came down to $242/mo vs anywhere from $360 to $480/mo with Uber. It's not clear to me that had I invested the purchase price the 7% return would be enough to make up the difference of $120-240/mo. Certainly not in the first year. I'd have to do the math to see when the breakeven point would be where that initial investment is yielding more than the extra cost of using Uber. There's also the fact that 7% is the market's return, which is over a 30 year span. On a 10 year span, the rate of return is highly volatile, and could even be negative (on the flip side, could be a lot more than 7%). I just ran the numbers, BTW. With my purchase price, invested at 7%, I break even after 7 years (just about the time I owned it) - assuming Uber is the upper bound of $480/mo. At the $360/mo cost I'd break even after 3-4 years. I didn't take into account the sale price, so that would make the breakeven point a little farther.