Car costs

For the external costs of the automobile, see Externalities of automobiles.
Itemized average total costs for the average American driver to own and operate an automobile.[1] This yearly value, around US$6650, corresponds, according to AAA, to a small sedan.[2]

A car's internal costs are all the costs consumers pay to own and operate a car.[3][4][5] Normally these expenditures are divided into fixed or standing costs and variable or running costs.[6] Fixed costs are those which do not depend on the distance traveled by the vehicle and which the owner must pay to keep the vehicle ready for use on the road, like insurance or road taxes. Variable or running costs are those that depend on the use of the car, like fuel or tolls.[7]

Compared to other popular modes of passenger transportation, especially buses or trains, the car has a relatively high cost per passenger-distance traveled.[8] Motorists in the United Kingdom spend, on average, roughly 1/3 of their average net income to operate a car,[9] while motorists in Portugal spend approximately 1/2 of their net income. For the average car owner, depreciation constitutes about half the cost of running a car.[9] The typical motorist underestimates this fixed cost by a significant margin.[10]

The IRS considers that the average US automobile has a total cost of US$0.58/mile, around €0.32/km.[11] According to the American Automobile Association, the average driver of the average sedan spends totally approximately US$8,700 per year, or US$720 per month, to own and operate their vehicle.[2]

  1. ^ "Automobile costs for United States; Average monthly cost per type". Automobile Costs Calculator. autocosts.info. April 2016.
  2. ^ a b Stepp, Erin (April 28, 2015). "Annual Cost to Own and Operate a Vehicle Falls to $8,698, Finds AAA". NewsRoom. American Automobile Association. Retrieved April 4, 2016.
  3. ^ The Automobile Association (2014). "Motoring Costs". theaa.com.
  4. ^ Gössling, Stefan; Kees, Jessica; Litman, Todd (1 April 2022). "The lifetime cost of driving a car". Ecological Economics. 194: 107335. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107335.
  5. ^ Andor, Mark A.; Gerster, Andreas; Gillingham, Kenneth T.; Horvath, Marco (April 2020). "Running a car costs much more than people think — stalling the uptake of green travel". Nature. 580 (7804): 453–455. doi:10.1038/d41586-020-01118-w.
  6. ^ The Automobile Association (2014). "Motoring Costs 2014" (PDF). theaa.com (PDF file).
  7. ^ The Automobile Association. "Car running costs 2013/14". theaa.com.
  8. ^ Diesendorf, Mark, "The Effect of Land Costs on the Economics of Urban Transportation Systems" (PDF), Proceedings of Third International Conference on Traffic and Transportation Studies (ICTTS2002), pp. 1422–1429, ISBN 978-0-7844-0630-4, archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-07-19, retrieved 2008-04-15
  9. ^ a b Osborne, Hilary (2006-10-20). "Cost of running a car 'exceeds £5,000'". The Guardian. London.
  10. ^ Meek, James (2004-12-20). "The slow and the furious". The Guardian. London.
  11. ^ IRS (December 14, 2018). "IRS issues standard mileage rates for 2019".