There are “True cost of driving” calculators to help understand this. Some of them are really involved. This one suggested to me that even my small, old hatchback costs something like $0.40 per mile, including depreciation, maintenance, fuel and so on.
One thing that most of us don’t have a gut feeling for: Even at $4-6 per gallon, fuel is usually not the biggest cost involved. That’s a lousy situation, because it means we don’t react to the real costs. “Market forces” can’t work if most of us don’t feel their pressures because we’re looking in the wrong places.
There are “True cost of driving” calculators to help understand this. Some of them are really involved. This one suggested to me that even my small, old hatchback costs something like $0.40 per mile, including depreciation, maintenance, fuel and so on.
One thing that most of us don’t have a gut feeling for: Even at $4-6 per gallon, fuel is usually not the biggest cost involved. That’s a lousy situation, because it means we don’t react to the real costs. “Market forces” can’t work if most of us don’t feel their pressures because we’re looking in the wrong places.
If you don’t feel like dealing with a complicated calculator, you can check how big a deduction the IRS allows for a mile of business use driving. This year it’s around $0.70.