Car ownership annual cost calculator

What a car's real cost includes

• •Depreciation: the gap between what you paid and what you'll be able to sell the car for, spread across the years you keep it — usually the biggest line item, and the one people forget.
• •Fuel or electricity, based on your actual annual mileage and real-world consumption.
• •Insurance, maintenance, and repairs — services, tires, predictable breakdowns.
• •The ITV inspection and circulation tax (IVTM), both mandatory and easy to leave out of a back-of-envelope estimate.

Depreciation: the most underestimated line item

When someone estimates "what the car costs," they almost always think of fuel and insurance — and forget that the car loses value every year, breakdown or not. That value loss (depreciation) is usually the single biggest cost component, especially in the early years when depreciation is fastest. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away — it just hides it until the day you sell the car and see how much it dropped.

Cost per kilometer: the number that matters

The total annual figure says little on its own — what's useful is dividing it by the kilometers you actually drive. Most car costs (depreciation, insurance, taxes, ITV) are fixed: they don't drop just because you drive less. That means the less you use the car, the more expensive each kilometer gets. It's the number that actually lets you compare owning a car against alternatives like public transport, car-sharing, or occasional taxi/rental use.

When does owning a car actually pay off?

There's no universal mileage threshold where owning "pays off" — it depends on your real alternatives (is there good public transport where you live? what does car-sharing or a taxi actually cost for your usual trips?) and how much you value having a car always available. What is useful is comparing the cost-per-km figure above against the real cost of those alternatives for your specific trips, instead of deciding on gut feeling.