How are you calculating driving any distance as being cheaper than $1? Surely if you factor in wear-and-tear on the car, you couldn't even get out of the driveway without eating that $1.

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o11c 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Let's say a gallon of gas costs $4 and your car gets 40 MPG. So $1 gets you 10 miles if you only consider gas (which very many people do, even if you think they shouldn't - much maintenance is imagined as time-based, and this is not entirely wrong - cars do decay even if you don't drive them, and insurance only rarely considers your odometer and only coarsely if so).

Wear and tear is generally assumed to be roughly equal to gas costs on well-maintained roads, depending on a lot of varying assumptions of what to include. So, 5 miles.

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piva00 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Adding depreciation, recurring costs such as insurance, parking, perhaps even opportunity cost from capital allocated in a depreciating asset. It starts to not look that cheap.

	▲	bombcar 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Lots of those things are relatively fixed, so it’s a “use the car today” question, not a “do I buy a Car” ideation.
	▲	HPsquared an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		If you already have access to a car, the marginal cost of driving an extra mile is low.