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Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

I'll bite.

I keep track of all my numbers. For the 86 months I had my last car, I paid an average of $236/mo.

This includes purchase price (subtracting out the amount I sold it for). Insurance. Taxes/fees. Gas. Auto insurance. Repairs and maintenance. Silly things like car washes.

Of course, I didn't buy a brand new car, or even a recent car. And bought a reliable brand so repairs were low. My insurance was not just liability. All apartments I lived in had parking, as did my work. The types of apartments that have expensive parking are the type that have high rents anyway, so I save in both by not living there.

Excluded is the gas for road trips, but I think that's fair as I doubt you used Lyft/Uber for road trips.

So for less than what you're paying a month, I got to have a car, and got to drive anywhere I wanted to - not just work.

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That may work fine for where you live, but that doesn't apply in my case. It's over $400/month alone for both parking in my apartment building, and getting a space to park near my work (both downtown Chicago). And 90% of the places I go to outside of work, don't have free easy parking, so I'd be paying a ton for parking since there isn't convenient free parking lots like suburbs have. So parking costs alone makes it unrealistic for me and not as cheap as in your case.

I think most people would gladly pay a bit more to not have to deal with the annoyance of owning a vehicle. Parking in most cities is pain. Driving to restaurants or bars is a no-go with your own vehicle. The flexibility you lose with having to own a car is simply not worth it.

Counterpoint: I think most people would gladly pay a bit more to not have to deal with the annoyance of only being able to use strangers' cars, of variable cleanliness, only after waiting several minutes for them to show up, and not being able to store anything in them during multi-stop trips.

In Germany a few big car companies start with an interesting middle ground, a "car as a service" where you pay monthly, can always switch to a different one or give it back for some time, they also handle repairs, tire changes and everything else that might pop up.

It's quite affordable starting at ~$350/mo, so I am curious to see how people will accept it.

>Parking in most cities is pain. Driving to restaurants or bars is a no-go with your own vehicle.

I'm not sure whether you're referring to driving under the influence or merely about parking. If the latter: In most cities in the US, these are mostly non-issues. So I disagree with your use of "most". Although I've used Lyft in the last few years for various reasons, only once did I use it because I was worried about not finding parking. For other occasions, I used public transit. But seriously - probably less than once a year do I need to find alternate transportation because I'm worried about parking.

(BTW, I forgot to add parking to the above estimate. I spent on average $6.03 a month on it).

I find a car to give more flexability than it takes. Its simple to pickup friends, do errands, with no scheduling or waiting. This doubtlessly depends on your area. Most people here assume everyone is in urban california fauxtopia.

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