Cars can be convenient, but they are also incredibly costly, both to owners and society in general. New academic research has calculated that the lifetime cost of a small car—such as an Opel Corsa—is about $689,000, of which society pays $275,000. (A Mercedes GLC costs $1+m over an owner’s lifetime.)
The research focused on Germany, but lead author Stefan Gössling told me the guiding principles work for other countries, too. Writing in Ecological Economics, Gössling stated that “the car is one of the most expensive household consumer goods, yet there is a limited understanding of its private and social cost per vehicle-km, year, or lifetime of driving.”
Motorists, he added, underestimate the total private costs of car ownership, “while policymakers and planners underestimate social costs.”
Cars are expensive because of their high ticket price and depreciation and the additional costs incurred by insurance, repairs, and fuel purchases. Mass motoring’s social costs—known to transport wonks as negative externalities—include carbon emissions from burning petrol and diesel, congestion, noise, deaths, injuries from crashes, road damage, and costs to health systems from sloth.
Other subsidies, such as the copious provision of free off-street car parking, are often mandated in building codes. America’s 250 million cars are oversupplied with an estimated 2 billion parking spots (think Wal-Mart at Christmas) yet spend 95% of their time going nowhere.
Gössling based his cost calculations on an individual driving 15,000 kilometers per year over 50 years. Previous studies using different parameters have reached similar conclusions. In his 2007 book, Deep Economy, environmental author and activist Bill McKibben concluded: “Households can save as much as $750,000 over a lifetime if the bus system works well enough to enable people not to buy a second car.”
And “Mr. Money Mustache”—real name Pete Adeney and who blogs to 350,000 regular readers, advising them how they can retire when young and yet still live comfortably—has stated that a typical American couple who commute to work in separate cars and who spend $19 per day in direct driving and car ownership costs would have paid $125,000 each after ten years.
Living closer to work and bicycling there would land the couple a cool $250,000.
Cars suck
Cars suck more cash than most people imagine. On an average income, half of a working week goes on paying for the costs associated with running an automobile, calculated philosopher Ivan Illich in his 1974 book Energy and…
Read More: Lifetime Cost Of Small Car $689,000; Society Subsidises This Ownership With