> with carsharing programs providing cars as needed for highway driving
I feel like this is the missing piece for me for the car-less life I dream of: what to do when I want to take a few-day trip to any of the beautiful places in easy driving distance of my dense urban core?
Car sharing is an option, but it's quite expensive. If I take a zipcar for 1 drive out to a campground on a Friday, then 1 drive back on a Sunday, I'm spending $240 or more.
You can argue that the cost of car rental is way less than the amortized cost of an actual car, but a $5k used vehicle pays for itself after 20 such trips.
I don't know a great solution here. Trains + long-distance buses only work if you're going exactly where they're going, or if you're headed to another city with good post-train transit options. Rent other people's unused cars (à la Getaround)? Prices for that seem to be barely better than Zipcar. Maybe rentable driverless cars, eventually: they can drive me to the campground, then drive themselves to the nearest town and rent themselves out to other people for the weekend until I need them again? I dunno.
> way less than the amortized cost of an actual car, but a $5k used vehicle pays for itself after 20 such trips.
First of all, the days of getting a decent car for $5k in the US ended with the pandemic and the supply chain insanity. But even if you could do that, you also need to factor in:
* Gas
* Insurance
* Registration and taxes
* Maintenance
If you don't use a car as part of your commute or regular errands, it's likely cheaper to rent.
Honestly, the best compromise solution is usually to share a single car for a household. Not helpful if you're single, but if you have a partner, then you can usually get by fairly well with just one car and now your individual costs are cut in half.
Another way to balance the trade-offs is to own a car that's smaller and more cost efficient but doesn't cover all your needs. Then rent on the infrequent times when you're traveling, camping, bringing a bunch of kids to a party, hauling lumber, etc. and you need the extra storage or passenger space.
I agree with using a single car for a household: my wife and I have done that for the past six years (living in Tennessee, Oregon, and Arizona) with a 2006 Toyota Highlander that we paid $7,000 in cash for. The last two years, we've had a baby/toddler. We've encountered a few (one or two per six months) situations where we might have _preferred_ another vehicle, but the inconvenience was so minor (I Ubered, or someone picked me up) that another vehicle couldn't remotely be justified. Recently we got a beat-up F-150 to haul lumber and soil, but don't use it day-to-day and have never _needed_ it as a second vehicle.
Regarding the sub-$5k car: it depends on your definition of "decent used car." Most people are unwilling to accept a used vehicle with a slightly broken interior or other minor issues. Just today, I was looking for comparative prices for a 2003 F-150 that I've got, and I found multiple in the $2-3k range in my area that are in good condition (running motor, A/C works, non-necessary repairs required). And that's a pickup truck: if you want a coupe or sedan, there are even more options below $3,000. You just need to be willing to accept some flaws: right now I've got several tabs open of good "A-to-B" cars with under 200k miles.
Not sure why gas is on there, it's not like rentals come with unlimited free gas.
And at $250ish to rent a vehicle for the weekend it only takes a couple weekends to pay for the insurance, registration, and taxes (or is it just that much more expensive on the coasts? I'm in the midwest). There's a reason people own instead of rent, and it isn't because renting never occurred to them.
Zipcar in fishtoaster's example includes gas in the price. The rental car comes with a debit card to pay for gas. There's a surcharge if you drive more than an 180 miles per day (averaged).
You can argue that the cost of car rental is way less than the amortized cost of an actual car
I don't think people arguing this have ever actually run the numbers and realize just how expensive rentals get. Every year my wife and I plan a week long road trip. If I price out this years trip from the midwest to Utah in a full size suv or truck (need 4wd and space for climbing/camping gear):
Base rental: $970
mileage fees: $350 (1400 miles at 25 cents a mile)
Tow fees: $180 (optional, but I like to bring my small teardrop so $20 a day for the tow package fees)
We're now close to $1500. At this price I can buy a truck, title it, insure it, and then sell it at a slight loss when I get home and still come out ahead of the rental. In just one trip.
It can entirely depend on the deals you get; I was able to rent a Tahoe (largish but not huge SUV) and drive it across the country and back for about a grand; unlimited miles; and I've done similar with a minivan. You get a brand new vehicle that you can put miles on and it's unlikely to fail you.
True, deals can sometimes be found but that's more work and worry when you should be relaxing on vacation. Combine that with the other drawbacks (dealing with pickup/return, worrying about scratches/damage, not able to have customizations like roof racks, going offroad or through mountains with crap rental tires, etc) and it's easy to see why renting is not more popular.
With that $5k used car, you're also paying monthly insurance and any required maintenance on it. If you were averaging less than once a month, the zipcar probably works out to be cheaper indefinitely.
Maybe? It depends if your car is in the shop for repairs, or has a dead battery (especially if driven infrequently), etc. For most people, the carrying-cost of a car is probably a few thousand dollars a year (insurance, maintenance, parking, depreciation, etc). If you're driving frequently and parking costs are sane, it's definitely going to work out to own a cheap car, but if you genuinely use a car infrequently and rentals are readily available, it's worth running the numbers carefully.
Just get a Toyota and keep up with annual servicing. Too many people get "exciting" or "fun" cars as their daily drivers that are not reliable. It's entirely on the owner. What's the point of owning a car if you are not going to drive it? A light electric golf cart isn't much cheaper either.
I just got my annual registration bill from the DMV. $768. In most cases, it's probably cheaper, but that's another significant line item in the mere ownership of a car.
As someone in the US who doesn't own a car, I can rent a car in the event of an emergency. Emergencies are rare, and spending $200 (including gas) for a one-off rental is still way cheaper than the TCO of owning a car.
There's no fundamental reason a zipcar - profit should be more expensive than a personal car. After all, if it's an equivalent car, you'd expect equivalent purchase cost, financing costs, insurance, taxes, fuel etc.
The only difference is that Zipcar has a much stronger market position than an individual consumer, and thus can get better contracts & economies of scale for things like purchasing, financing, maintenance and insurance.
And there's no reason to think profits are a very significant part of the pricing. It's a competitive market and Zipcar has never turned a profit in the past 20 years.
There's overhead both for Zipcar and for consumers, e.g. to arrange for repairs on cars. Consumers are just doing 'unpaid labour' by arranging a car to get repairs for example and pay in 'opportunity costs', while Zipcar will pay staff to arrange such repairs, and charge the customer ultimately to pay their staff. But economically there's no difference, opportunity costs are still costs. And again, I'd expect Zipcar to get economies of scale, dedicated professionals working with optimised processes and tightly negotiated contracts on the overhead, to do better than an average joe having to arrange the same repairs.
So while I won't argue the $240 bill you referenced, or calculate exactly the equivalent costs of a personal car, I hope you'd agree there's no fundamental reason equivalent use of a car via a sharing service should be more expensive.
I do hope you agree that it should be as cheap, or cheaper for two reasons. One the economies of scale & professional approach to car ownership, being more efficient. But two, that some of the costs (like manufacturing the car) don't scale with usage, and thus become way cheaper when spread over multiple users. If you only use a car 1 out of 10 days, there's no way I can see how a personal car can get close to as cheap as a shared car.
So apart from personal convenience & psychology around personal ownership, I think car sharing wins as an economic model long-term. Just like we share airplanes, hotels etc. Now convenience wins because there's not a car available everywhere and always. But as soon as every car has self-driving tech, given the amount of cars I see around me in a city that are just sitting there, I think in urban centres car sharing will become the norm. In less dense places personal cars will likely remain.
I feel like this is the missing piece for me for the car-less life I dream of: what to do when I want to take a few-day trip to any of the beautiful places in easy driving distance of my dense urban core?
Car sharing is an option, but it's quite expensive. If I take a zipcar for 1 drive out to a campground on a Friday, then 1 drive back on a Sunday, I'm spending $240 or more.
You can argue that the cost of car rental is way less than the amortized cost of an actual car, but a $5k used vehicle pays for itself after 20 such trips.
I don't know a great solution here. Trains + long-distance buses only work if you're going exactly where they're going, or if you're headed to another city with good post-train transit options. Rent other people's unused cars (à la Getaround)? Prices for that seem to be barely better than Zipcar. Maybe rentable driverless cars, eventually: they can drive me to the campground, then drive themselves to the nearest town and rent themselves out to other people for the weekend until I need them again? I dunno.