EHaving your own car is a great thing: Just get in and drive off when you want and don’t have to pay attention to bus and train timetables, that’s something. But it’s a luxury. Because we have probably suspected it for a long time: owning a car is quite expensive. That was the case before high fuel prices hit drivers. But now, with the price of two euros for a liter of Super, the calculation has to be reopened.
So how much does a car currently cost if you do the math fairly and don’t just look at the fuel costs? But also purchase, repair costs, insurance, taxes and depreciation over the years of use. Definitely more than most people think. As early as 2020, a study by RWI, the University of Mannheim and Yale University found that car owners generally made a good estimate of fuel costs, but severely underestimated the loss in value of the car and fixed costs such as insurance. The respondents therefore underestimated the total cost of owning a car by an average of 221 euros per month – that was 52 percent of the actual costs.