Well the price difference obviously depends on the number of days you actually need a car, but afaik it doesn't take too much planning ahead to rent through a car sharing app these days. Anyway I asked GPT 4 with browsing to make a ballpark calculation for Germany to see roughly when it becomes more cost effective:
Based on the average costs obtained:
The average price of a new car in Germany is €37,790 1 .
The average depreciation of a new car in Germany after 36 months is 41.1% 2 .
The average cost of car insurance in Germany is around €250 per year 3 .
The average cost of vehicle tax in Germany is around €100 per year 4 .
The average cost of a car inspection in Germany is €120 every 2 years 4 .
The average cost of a parking permit in Germany (considering big cities) is €20.40 valid for 2 years 4 .
The average cost of a rental car in Germany is $55 per day, $307 per week ($44 per day), and $1,318 per month ($44 per day) 5 .
To make a comparison, we need to consider the cost of owning a car for a year versus renting a car for a number of days in a year.
The cost of owning a car per year would be:
Depreciation: €37,790 * 41.1% / 3 years = €5,168.59 per year
Insurance: €250 per year
Vehicle tax: €100 per year
Inspection: €120 / 2 years = €60 per year
Parking permit: €20.40 / 2 years = €10.20 per year
Adding up these costs gives a total cost of ownership of approximately €5,589.79 per year.
We also need to consider that while the daily rental cost is $55, the weekly and monthly rates are cheaper per day, at $44. To make a comparison, let's use the weekly rate, and assume it applies for any number of days.
Assuming an exchange rate of 1.12 USD/EUR (as of my training data cut-off in September 2021), the cost of renting a car for a day would be $44 * 1.12 = €49.28.
Therefore, the break-even point in days of car usage per year would be:
€5,589.79 / €49.28 = approximately 113 days
So if you plan to use a car for more than 113 days in a year, it would be cheaper to buy a car instead of renting, based on these average costs.
I mean 100 days? That's like going for a trip almost every third day of the year. Absolute madness to buy a car if you're not using it to drive to work every day if this is correct. I would presume that the average price is a bit skewed with high end cars moving it away from the median, but the car sharing prices I see are also more like 20-35€ per day, so that probably balances out.
Full convo with references: https://chat.openai.com/share/4d6868a2-2862-465d-be72-eef3bb...