[AnthonyMouse]

There are two different calculations here. One is, what's the total cost of vehicle ownership amortized per mile? That's what the government and most popular types of accounting use.

The other is, given I'm going to own a car already, what's the difference between a shorter commute and a longer one? That's going to be a lower number per mile. A big chunk of the vehicle's depreciation is a result of years rather than miles, insurance doesn't generally track how many miles you drive and charge extra if you drive more, the registration and tax isn't any different etc.

The second one is how a lot of people end up all the way out in the suburbs. They can't afford to live in the part of the city that makes it viable to not have a car at all, but once you have a car as a sunk cost, another ten or twenty (or thirty or ...) miles in exchange for saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on housing starts to look like a good deal.

Though the huge factor people commonly forget is their own time. If your time is worth $25/hour then a half hour each way on your commute is $6500/year. And that's assuming you're only further away from work and not also further away from whatever you do on weekends.

[daurnimator]

> A big chunk of the vehicle's depreciation is a result of years rather than miles

Ehhhh, I'd say that it's not that skewed towards age of the vechile beyond common correlations:

  - usually more years = more miles
  - cars < 5 years are usually in warranty and fetch a premium

> insurance doesn't generally track how many miles you drive and charge extra if you drive more

Mine does: in 5000km increments. (Australia)

[AnthonyMouse]

> Ehhhh, I'd say that it's not that skewed towards age of the vechile beyond common correlations

But the warranty period is a huge amount of value, and there are others, e.g. newer cars are safer and have whatever other improvements so older cars aren't worth as much regardless of milage. Then many repairs are age related rather than mileage related, e.g. a car exposed to the elements will rust or experience day/night thermal stress even if you don't drive it.

> Mine does: in 5000km increments. (Australia)

Let me rephrase this. The insurance cost does not scale linearly with miles driven.

[benj111]

"Mine does: in 5000km increments. (Australia)"

Insurance has interesting edge cases, like 3rd party can be more expensive than comprehensive, as risky drivers go for the former.

I've had insurance before, where putting in a higher mileage lowers the premium. I assume there's a lower bound where you start getting into Sunday driver territory where risks start increasing?

[cardiffspaceman]

My insurance company has asked me to confirm my miles per year on occasion, especially the commuting part.