[spwa4]

I always (as soon as I could) owned a car, first on independence, but soon that became on price. A car costs between $350 and $500 per month, plus about 2 gas tanks, let's say $600. That's only 10-15 short taxi rides and two long taxi rides at best.

And now I have a family, there's 5 of us. A car is easily less than half the price of public transport for what I need to do (because you pay per person).

I hate traffic, and I don't really like driving, but since a car is easily 30 minutes faster than public transport to drive in to work, sadly 30 minutes of traffic in the morning is still faster than public transport, no matter how annoying it is. Oh and no waiting in the rain/cold is a nice bonus.

[kccqzy]

A car does not cost $350 and $500 per month. If it does, it’s a status symbol, not merely a tool to get from A to B, and therefore it is unfair to compare it against taxi rides.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting a nicer more luxurious car for yourself. But it’s just ingenious to compare that against taxis with beaten-up and spartan but reliable cars.

[graeme]

That's not outrageous as a car price once you add insurance, maintenance, taxes, parking, license fee, cleaning, etc

Along with any interest on the purchase or foregone investment gains. You can use a true cost of ownership calculator here.

https://www.edmunds.com/honda/accord/2022/cost-to-own/?style...

[timerol]

The average monthly payment for a used car in the US in 2025 was $532, according to https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/average-car-paym.... This does not count insurance, taxes, parking, or gas.

A status symbol will easily run you $1000/mo. I currently pay $350/mo (including cost of capital), and I don't know how I would pay less for a car that's not actively falling apart. Chevy Spark, manual transmission, $7k KBB value, averaging 500 miles per month.

[bigstrat2003]

There's no shot that number isn't being driven up by people purchasing more car than they need. You can get a used car for $10,000 or less, there's no reason one needs to pay $500/mo.

[fc417fc802]

You sure about that? A $7k car expensed over 18 months plus insurance and road tax is ballpark $450 /mo. That omits maintenance and fuel but conversely also underestimates how long the vehicle will be kept on average. Depending on where you live parking will range from free to potentially more than $100 /mo.

If you manage to stretch $10k cars out to 5 years on average with zero maintenance it's less than $200 /mo but ... no maintenance in 5 years?

I think $300 /mo plus fuel and parking is probably a reasonable estimate for frugal behavior.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> A car does not cost $350 and $500 per month.

This can vary a lot.

6 years ago, I was driving a Subaru BRZ which averaged 32 mpg. My commute was ~30 miles each way, add in a couple miles for weekly errands, and let's just say I was using 10 gallons/week. If gas was $3, that's $30/week, $120/month. Plus $150/month for insurance, it's $270/month.

Still way under your 350-500/month figure, but that's also assuming the car is paid off.

> If it does, it’s a status symbol, not merely a tool to get from A to B, and therefore it is unfair to compare it against taxi rides.

$350-500/month is cheaper than taxi rides. Even with a more reasonable 5-10 mile commute, I'd be spending probably $50/DAY if I took taxis.

[vel0city]

You're not including an amortized cost of maintenance, registration fees, etc. Adding in tires alone ($720 for a set, 50k/1200 ~=41 months, ~$17.50/mo) brings it to almost $290/mo. Oil change every 6 months or so, add another $10/mo or so. Now we're at $300/mo and hoping nothing in the car breaks and needs repairs on a car that's already paid off, and we still haven't paid our taxes and registration fees.

Now figure in the fact you've got several thousand dollars in a car instead of even something like a high-yield savings account. At even 4% APY, if you had just $8k tied up in that car that's another ~$27/mo of income you're missing out on.

I'm not making the argument riding a taxi for every trip is cheaper than this. Just pointing out there's a lot of things people don't think about when they think of the cost of car ownership.

[mschuster91]

> A car does not cost $350 and $500 per month.

Insurance alone can be 100€ a month (and more so for younger drivers). At a very modest 5 liters / 100km and a one way route of 20 km you're at 800km a month / 40 liters of gas => 1.80€ a liter => 72€ in fuel. Your average car then has 20 ct/km for maintenance costs (inspections, spare parts, oil changes, tires, workshop time), so another 160€ a month - and more if it is a run-down junker car.

That are just the fixed running costs you have with pretty much every car, around 330€ a month. We haven't talked about depreciation yet at all. Even if you say you buy a barely road worthy wreck for 3000 € and run it until it's only ripe for the junkyard to fetch maybe 500 € every two years, that's still about 100€ a month you're paying.

And what we also haven't had a single talk about is operating and purchase taxes, highway tolls, city-core tolls, rental spots for parking (including the price you have paid for the garage in your house, it's a lot of real estate), that also can easily add to many hundreds of euros each year.

Cars are expensive once you actually include replacement/depreciation and maintenance costs.

[spwa4]

> Cars are expensive once you actually include replacement/depreciation and maintenance costs.

Yep, that describes cars. High up front cost that barely goes up when you need more done (meaning: family of 5? Car beats even the bus fare for a 3km ride to school). In trade for independence, cheap groceries, cheaper travel (at least in opportunity cost), cheap days out with the family, bigger house is realistic, ability to go work in not so well connected places (I'm a consultant), capacity to actually get heavy things, collect people, not waiting/dragging things around in cold/rain/...

Oh and these DON'T add up. Bring the kids to school AND drive to work AND get groceries by car? You don't pay 3 times like you do with any other means of transport, you pay 1.2 times what you pay when doing only one.

With 2 people in the car it easily matches public transport costs if you use it enough. Oh and even by yourself it's like half taxi/uber fares, a third or less of waymo fares (though at least those don't charge per person).

[amccollum]

The standard tax deduction for car travel is $0.70 / mile in the US, which accounts for things like insurance, gas, maintenance, and depreciation. So $500 / month is around 700 miles, which probably around 90% of US drivers surpass.

[tanseydavid]

There is no tax deduction (in the US) for vehicle use that is non-business related.

[zimzam]

Correct, the person you are responding to is using it as a benchmark for the all-in cost of driving a vehicle on a per-mile basis.

[Analemma_]

Car insurance has essentially doubled in price over the past few years, from a combination of

- cars becoming more complicated to repair. Marco Arment of Overcast related an incident where his Rivian had a simple fender bender, and his insurance was billed $15,000 in labor and parts to fix it because of the monobody construction where you have to tear apart half the car to fix anything

- inflation in both goods and services means car repair costs are going up

- more reckless and uninsured drivers thanks to general post-covid norm breakdowns

Insurance alone can now be $150-200/month even if you don't have a particularly nice car. Combine that with gas, maintenance, and registration taxes, and I think most people in the US are paying at least $350/month for their car even if amortized costs mean they don't realize it.

[mikestew]

Marco Arment of Overcast related an incident where his Rivian had a simple fender bender, and his insurance was billed $15,000 in labor and parts to fix it because of the monobody construction where you have to tear apart half the car to fix anything

Hyundai Ioniq 5, backing into the garage next to the RV, and at "backing into the garage" speed ran into the RV. The fiberglass body of the RV suffered a 3 inch diameter break in the fiberglass that I could have fixed myself. The Hyundai? 17,000 American dollars. The rear quarter panel took a dent, and (IIRC) the bumper might have had some damage. Part of the problem was that there really isn't a "rear quarter panel" anymore. No, as I looked at it, that piece of sheet metal goes all the way from the rear bumper to the front of the passenger compartment. The shop didn't replace that piece, but rather cut the dented piece out and welded in new sheet metal.

Between that, and all the sensors, etc., $17K for backing into a piece of fiberglass at not even a walking pace. Now that the car has some years on it, if I do that again they'll probably total it.

[Lammy]

> I think most people in the US are paying at least $350/month

What an absurd statement. Mine has gone down in the past several years, and I pay around that per 6 months.

[danielmarkbruce]

You are ridiculous. The all in cost is easily that. Cars don't run on air. Insurance costs money.

And you don't use "ingenious" there.

[GuinansEyebrows]

huh? i bought a used, very low-end/utilitarian 10 year old car and paid more than half upfront and my monthly payment was like $300. factor in insurance and gas and i was easily close to 400-450. the days of $1000 beaters that actually run well are gone :(

[boplicity]

The cost is a factor -- and something that I think policy makers should very much push to change.

For our family of four, two of us pay for public transport as of now. That adds up to $12 round trip; which is often more expensive than parking in the even in a high density area. Once we have to start paying for the kids too, that would add up to $24 for a round trip, which ends up being more expensive than driving. I get that public transportation is expensive to operate; maybe that alone is the root of the problem here.

[smugma]

Yes, all those things. Except on cost, at least in SF, MUNI is free for children.

We mostly drive wherever we need to go, especially when it's all of us. But if we're going to a Warriors game, we always take Muni, at it's more convenient (and free for adults too if you show your ticket).

Also, it's generally faster and more convenient (and fun) to get to Chase Center via Muni than driving. Getting back is tough both because this is peak Lyft/Waymo demand as well as peak Muni demand.

[seanmcdirmid]

I’m guessing you live in America where car ownership is heavily subsidized? Many places you would spend $500/month just to park your car, maybe more.

[nradov]

In most of America there is abundant free parking on private property including homes, stores, and workplaces. That is hardly a subsidy. I understand the argument that dense cities shouldn't have so much free public street parking but there are only a handful of neighborhoods where that even matters.

[seanmcdirmid]

The "free parking" isn't really free, you just have land that is really cheap devoted to it. And where it isn't...well, American housing prices and rents are increased to pay for them. Street parking matters in almost every neighborhood in Seattle now...since parking on its own is expensive, and you will also have to pay for a few busted windows on your car for the pleasure of free street parking.

The highways are heavily subsidized by general funds these days since raising the gas tax outside of a few states isn't very popular.

I'm American but in the other countries I lived in (Switzerland and China) and the many countries I've visited, private car ownership is always a luxury, not a cheap necessety attainable by everyone.

[bigstrat2003]

> The "free parking" isn't really free, you just have land that is really cheap devoted to it.

When I can park my car in my driveway at no marginal cost to myself, most people (including me) would call that free.

[seanmcdirmid]

If you have a driveway. I had to look around hard for a house with a car port that wasn't just a slot in a crowded alley, heck, I saw some beautiful houses that had no effective parking at all (maybe they had sunk garages built in 1920 that were not usable by modern cars).

[fc417fc802]

> And where it isn't...well, American housing prices and rents are increased to pay for them.

The driver of housing cost in US cities is lack of supply. Parking spaces are a drop in the bucket versus what is missing. The root cause is zoning laws; particularly the height restrictions as they currently stand.

[seanmcdirmid]

> Parking spaces are a drop in the bucket versus what is missing.

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/seattle-parking-spot-sells-...

That was 2022, $56k is probably about 10% of a one or two bedroom condo price.

> The root cause is zoning laws; particularly the height restrictions as they currently stand.

Tokyo is, as I understand it, the libertarian ideal for a city that doesn't let zoning get in the way of a good time, and parking space prices are still expensive there:

> Monthly rental rates for spots in the 23 Wards range from ¥30,000 to over ¥80,000, which reflects high underlying property value.

That's $200 to $500 a month.

[fc417fc802]

I think there's a misunderstanding. I'm not claiming that parking space if charged at the market rate for an unimproved cement room in a high rise is particularly cheap. You can only fit so many cars within the footprint of a typical condo after all.

I'm claiming that removing parking (ie converting the raw sq footage over to living space) would not meaningfully impact housing prices. The existence of parking, free or otherwise, is not a significant contributor to the housing shortage. The issue is one of scale. That's what my "drop in the bucket" comment is referring to.

You specifically said "American housing prices and rents are increased to pay for them". That is technically correct but in context it is blatantly wrong. The price increase as it stands is approximately zero.

The error is failing to differentiate between cost due to construction and maintenance versus cost due to land value. The latter is linked to total supply and thus height restrictions. The former is not the primary component in HCoL cities. You can easily verify this by checking the cost to purchase an apartment building in say San Francisco versus a small town in the midwest. (I refer to the cost to purchase the entire building there, not the cost to rent a single unit.)

[dmitrygr]

> American housing prices and rents are increased to pay for them.

Which means people were willing to pay to have a place to park. WAI