[KingMachiavelli]

How is including the fixed costs at all fair? Even if someone lived clothes enough to use public transport some some activities; work during rush hour. People in the US often still need a car to get to everything else in a timely manner such as doctor appointments. Groceries are a big one as well, how are you going to carry 2 weeks of food for 2-4 people on a bus or rail? A lot of public transport users still need to drive to the station.

My estimation is that a large portion of public transport users only use it for part of their transport needs thus making the fixed costs of car ownership a sunk cost.

Therefore, the variables costs; gas (or electricity) and maintenance make the most sense to use in living cost estimations. Even at the extreme end where you can live in the middle of a city and use public transport for mostly everything, you'd still need a car or a friend with one to go skiing.

[benj111]

Owning a car has costs, some if them are fixed, including them are entirely fair.

We could have a debate about including it in a per mile rate, rather than splitting it out, but ultimately they are costs car owners have to pay, and non car owners don't.

A sunk cost is still a cost. A cost you have to pay is still a cost.

[closeparen]

We can’t say that car ownership is a consequence of location if you are going to own the car regardless of location. Plenty of city-dwelling transit commuters drive on the weekends; it’s not fair to say that transit access == zero vehicles.

I think we could say it switches from a necessity to a leisure expense, and that city dwelling households can get most of what they want from a single car vs. several.

[benj111]

I'm not sure that we can't say car ownership is a consequence of location. Plenty doesn't mean all, and transit access == zero vehicles is an argument no ones making.

Clearly if a household moves from several cars to one car, fixed costs will decrease, which seems like an argument to measure fixed costs.

I'd agree with your point about vehicles potentially being leisure expenses, you could perhaps go further and start dividing up those fixed costs between leisure use, and business use. I'd even accept the argument that if you need a car, your leisure transport should be free from the fixed costs, as they have to be borne anyway, but they do have to be accounted for somewhere.

[nostrademons]

The fixed costs still depreciate. You still have to either pay upfront for the car, finance it and pay interest, or lease it, and the car has a fixed lifetime. Repair/maintenance should go in there as well.

I'd be curious how many miles the grandparent has on the car though. My per-mile costs are also sky-high (because it's 10 years old and only has about 40k miles on it - I think it works out to $0.75/mile or so), but the flip side is that if this drives like a normal Honda it should be good for another 150k miles and, if I don't get into an accident or change my driving habits, I will never need to purchase another car.

[bluGill]

Current just over 260,000 miles. This makes a big difference in my per-mileage calculations, as you said, someone who drives less than I did (I had a few contract jobs far from home) would see different numbers.