~$ finance/car-cost
The true cost of a car 🚗
The sticker price is the smallest number involved. This adds the depreciation, the fuel, the insurance, the rego, the interest — and the growth all of that money would have earned if it were in the market instead of in your driveway.
Costs — a week
—/km
Verdict
Crunching…
Per week
—
Per year
—
Per kilometre
—
Worth when you sell
—
Where the money goes
The cost, accumulating
True cost — cash plus forgone growth
Cash cost alone
The longer you keep it, the cheaper it gets
average true cost per year, by sale yearThe year-one cliff is the drive-away depreciation hit spread over one year instead of many. Running costs are held flat, so the far right is kinder than an ageing car really is.
How this works
- Depreciation is the biggest cost, and it's invisible. Nothing leaves your bank account — the car just quietly becomes worth less. The default curve drops 18% the first year and 9% of what remains each year after, which is roughly what a mainstream car does. Prestige badges and EVs with fast-moving tech tend to fall harder.
- Two totals, one truth. The cash cost is depreciation plus running costs plus loan interest — identical to “everything you paid, minus what you get back when you sell”. The true cost adds what that money would have earned invested at your assumed return, contributed the month it would have been spent.
- No double counting. The opportunity line is only the ghost portfolio’s growth, never the contributions — every dollar you actually spent is already counted once in the cash cost.
- Running costs are held flat. Real servicing bills climb as a car ages, insurance drifts with the market, and fuel does whatever it wants. Flat is the defensible middle; just know the later years shown here are the optimistic version.
- The loan makes the same car cost more. Borrowing adds interest on top of everything else, and the repayments are dollars that also miss out on market growth. If the term outlives your ownership, the balance is cleared from the sale proceeds.
- The real comparison isn’t car vs. no car. It’s this car vs. the transport you’d actually use instead — a cheaper car, public transport, or rideshare. Run the calculator twice and compare verdicts; the gap between two cars is usually the decision that matters.
- Not modelled: inflation, fringe benefits tax, novated leases, parking, tolls, fines, cleaning, and the specific joy of a car you love — which, like the house, is not a spreadsheet.
General information only — not financial advice, and I’m not a financial adviser. Your numbers stay in your browser.