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Re:The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper... by TylerE on Monday July 01, 2019 @03:44PM (#20329012)
Not really.

Buying new tires are a thing. Even if you buy cheap tires and get good life out of them (and that combo is...rare, you get what you pay for), that's, say, $400 ever 40,000 miles, that's a cent a mile right there..and tires are usually more expensive than that and don't last that long.

The most obvious cost of wear and tear though is that eventually the car needs to be replaced. More miles = sooner replacement.

Re:The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper... by bluGill on Monday July 01, 2019 @04:00PM (#20329166)
Any modern car that is well maintained will last far longer than you will own it. People give up on their cars because their self image needs an excuse to get a new one. A lot of the maintenance cost is time based as well: UV and ozone are destroying rubber parts even while the car is sitting.

It depends on the car, but typically you are looking at $.20/mile for fuel, and $.05 for all other maintenance (including tires).

The average new car payment is something like $550/month. The average used car is somewhat less of course. Most people are making payments. Insurance is $500/year if you have a perfect driving record, many people pay more. These costs have nothing to do with how far you drive.

A few years ago I calculated my actual per/mile cost for my car, it was $.15/month, even though I bought it new (I track every fill up, though at 46mpg my fuel costs are less than average). The car had 200,000 miles on it to spread all the fixed costs across, and had been paid off for a few years.

The point is the marginal cost to drive a car you already own is low.

Re:The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper... by TylerE on Monday July 01, 2019 @04:37PM (#20329484)
Considering I was driving 30k/yr at one point while commuting, I can imagine quite a lot of miles, actually.

PS: Your insurance costs are fantasy land. The average US driver pays almost $1500/hr. I haven't had so much as a speeding ticket in a decade and live in a safe small town and am still over $1k/yr.

Re:The New Austrian Railways' Intercity and Nightjet Sleeper... by metildaa on Monday July 01, 2019 @09:21PM (#20331300)
Lower mileage insurance can help reduce that cost by the way, if you tell your insurer your only adding 2k miles a year to the car rather than 10k miles, they will drop your rates commensurately.

Sub in an eBike for the commuting & errands, its quite doable to go car light or car free (esp. if Car2go, Lime pod or another service is available in your city).