If you either determine that you use that car a ton, or you do the math, work out exactly how often you'd need that car, and what the costs are for the nearest viable alternative solution, and the car's TCO is cheaper - great. You did what this post is trying to tell you to do: Stop thinking about an unattainable hypothetical 'I shall be using this at maximum usage all the time', and start thinking about what you actually need, and how often you'd need it.
Perhaps the lesson to learn is simply judge and balance your own unique situation to your needs, and drink a large cup of stfu when it comes to judging others for what their needs are rather than push your own choices/agenda upon others?
As for vehicles, I have a mid-sized or so SUV and sometimes I transport people but I often transport stuff from the home improvement store, etc. I have no interest in owning a small vehicle and then have to rent on a semi-regular basis.
And, yes, I own tons of stuff that doesn't get used much. But most of that stuff can't be easily rented or borrowed for the times I need it. Should I rent an electric drill or a weed whacker every time I need one? There have been whole business models based on this idea but they ignore the transaction costs.
I think this one is not quite like the others. if you only need a car for one week each year, you don't lose much by renting. but putting your friends in a hotel is not really a substitute for having them stay at your place imo. if I only get to see a close friend once a year, I want to make the most of the time that they're in town, cooking breakfast together, staying up talking until we can't keep our eyes open, etc. it's really not the same if a day of hanging out starts and ends with transit to/from a hotel.
I agree on the car if you're really only using it for a trip or two a year. (Indeed, I wouldn't even consider owning a car in that case. I probably would if I were going away a couple weekends a month though.)
Couch surfing is also a perfectly reasonable alternative.
There's monetary and temporal costs. Instead of having to spend minutes to an hour to arrange and get a rental, you could have the item waiting in another room, ready to be used.
The car-agnostic ideal won't work outside of major cities. The backbone of America is car travel. People outside cities have more space and more stuff. They expect hauling and utility function in their vehicles. This isn't changing.
Maybe if you can convince suburbanites to downsize, you might have a point. But that's also a city-centric viewpoint imposed by limited space and desire to move easily. Neither of those things are desired in the suburbs.
City dwellers don't get it because they don't live that life.
Maybe. Maybe not. The point is to do the exercise for your use case. If it costs you 1.5 hours and rental fees to get a minivan and you need it once a year, that's one side of the scale. On the other side you have purchase, insurance, maintenance, depreciation, storage and fuel costs.
The point is to be honest with both sides of the scale and to actually do the comparison rather than taking an automatic answer "I need to drive extra kids to camp sometimes, so I must own a minivan." Maybe. Maybe not. Just be conscious about the choice, not automatic.
Price difference between smaller car and larger car: $15000
Lifetime of car: 8 years
Frequency the larger car is needed: once per month
Additional time to pick up and drop off rental: 3 hours
Money saved per hour: $52
So it seems that if someone values their time more than ~$50/hour, they should buy the larger vehicle.
Edit: Forgot to take into account the rental fee: $150
Money saved per hour: $2
It looks like it doesn't make sense to rent, as buying would allow the convenience of using the larger vehicle any time, especially if it is more than once a month.
I have a mid-sized car, and I go to Tahoe 3-4 times a year, and probably end up being the driver 2 or 3 of those times. For me, it makes sense to rent a 4WD/AWD SUV with snow tires for those 2 or 3 winter trips, especially since I'll split the cost of the rental among the friends who ride with me.
There's also the comfort/style/happiness factor: I like my car and generally don't like driving big bulky vehicles that are high off the ground; having an SUV as my primary vehicle would make me unhappy.
Sure, anecdotal, not perfectly scientific or even at a good enough scale... but I don't really believe the 10% idea. I'd love to see where their scientific data is on that.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1040-july...
And I think most people would trade an hour driving for $50.
You can add "additional time to park in the city because you have a big-ass car" to your calculations :)
I doubt those in the suburbs will have any trouble parking. That's a city problem.
Let's say 10,000 miles a year, 30 MPG for small car and 15 MPG for large car, and $3/gallon gas. That give an extra $1000 in gas per year for the large car, or an extra $83 per month if a large car is needed once a month, or $28/hour saved for the inconvenience of the hours spent picking up and dropping off the rental.
Either way, the delta is much smaller than what I was expecting, in the range of a couple of hundred a month at the high end, depending on which way the numbers swing. It can be something that's not worth worrying about, for someone who has a middle class income.
FWIW, 15 MPG would be low for my F150. A Volvo wagon gets 25 MPG, for example. This ain't the 70s :).
It could also be buying that DSLR camera for going photographing twice a year instead of renting for these occasions, or buying that 3000$ workstation to play games that require that power once a month instead of going to a net cafe (or using Stadia or whatever).
In many suburbs for example it's common to need the car to do basically anything.
The US used to have corner stores and fairly walkable places, but it's something you find in the older parts of towns and cities, and it may have decayed since it wasn't prioritized much for many years.
Notice above I qualified it with Europe or Asia. If you go to South America, or Africa odds are even the city you are going to doesn't have good transit for most people. (A handful are building, but there are lot of cities that could have good transit that don't have it)
I was born in a small city in Spain where most people still need a car to go to work, do groceries, go to a restaurant, etc.
Visit the slums of Mumbai, or the shanty towns of Lagos, or the favelas of Lima. These may be high density, but they're certainly not "walkable". Either in the sense of being pedestrian friendly or having many services easily accessible by walking/public transport.
There's a reason that the motorbike is one of the most popular consumer products for middle income countries. In the vast majority of the third world, the populace is desperate for any sort of personal motor transportation.
You could drive somewhere 15 minutes away and back, twice per day, and still be under 5%.
Own what appreciates, rent what depreciates.
That's not accurate. With a lease you're just paying for the depreciation directly, at a predetermined rate.
It can definitely make sense, though. I leased a Bolt for my wife for $6K for three years. Even if she only drove it once every week or so it would be hard to do on-demand rental for less.