It’s fairly common that people massively underestimate the actual costs of owning a car (let alone the externalized costs such as free parking and environmental effects), but several studies lately consistently put the costs at around 500EUR/month in europe. Here’s a little example: VW Golf, mid market model, 30k EUR new, monthly total costs ~600 EUR. https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/autodatenbank/autokosten/det...
I can rent a larger car for two weeks every month for that amount money.
That’s a monthly difference of 230 EUR. That’s enough to rent the Golf for a full week every month. (I only did a cursory check at a single company, no discount etc: 233EUR/week)
Prices in the US may differ, but I doubt that the total economics play out substantially different, because that would imply that the market for rental cars would have serious potential for lowering prices.
Now think about the potential price difference if you could buy a vehicle that doesn’t need to go faster than 80km/h and was optimized for urban traffic.
I can rent a larger car for two weeks every month for that amount money.
Compare that to a Citroen C1 (still a 4 seater car that can go > 160km/h on the autobahn) 370 EUR: https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/autodatenbank/autokosten/det...
That’s a monthly difference of 230 EUR. That’s enough to rent the Golf for a full week every month. (I only did a cursory check at a single company, no discount etc: 233EUR/week)
Prices in the US may differ, but I doubt that the total economics play out substantially different, because that would imply that the market for rental cars would have serious potential for lowering prices.
Now think about the potential price difference if you could buy a vehicle that doesn’t need to go faster than 80km/h and was optimized for urban traffic.