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Comment by steve_adams_86 | Hacker News Reader

Here in Canada my 2017 vehicle has cost me $6023 CAD (maintenance, cost of ownership, insurance) per year on average. Maintenance includes a suspension repair, new tires, brakes, oil, other small things. I’ve included small items purchased for the car.

If I included fuel it would be a much scarier number.

Based on its apparent condition and ongoing expenses, I don’t expect this number to increase much. I have a feeling Uber’s numbers are wrong, or they’re including fuel costs.

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To get a number that high, they're likely also including parking costs too, as well as fuel. If a garage adds $100,000 to the value of a house, that's over $500 a month in increased mortgage costs. And if you have to pay to park at work, too...

You explicitly need to include the cost of fuel. So what is the scarier number?

There is a distinction between ownership and usage. By simple fact of owning a car, I have some $1-2k annual fixed costs (insurance + registration + minor maintenance). Gas scales with the utilization, which is lifestyle dependent.

But if you’re comparing to switching to a different mode, you have to include the cost of gas.

That’s what this article is about?

I think the math on car ownership is more complicated than $X to own vs $Y to rent on demand. Being able to take an impromptu trip without any coordination is worth significant quality of life.

It typically takes 5-10 minutes for an Uber to arrive at my door. Not to mention the few times where the driver has cancelled the ride, and left me waiting for a new one to be assigned. Especially troublesome when you are relying upon this service to make a hard deadline at the airport.

Great. There are ways around that, ultimately you can work that into the model as a discount.

Pretending that fuel isn’t part of the equation doesn’t help though.

This seems tough to factor in at the individual level, since usage costs will vary dramatically. I suppose the same applies with rental, but ownership costs won’t very as much. They are difficult models to compare both for cost and practical use reasons. They seem fungible, but in many ways they aren’t.

It looks like with fuel considered, my yearly cost rises to about $12k.

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