A year of driving, line by line

Ask what a car costs and almost everyone answers with gas. Gas is under a third of it. The rest never appears on a bank statement in a form you would recognise.

by The editors · August 22, 2026 · 7 min read

Ask someone what their car costs per month and you will get a number that is roughly the gas. It is a completely reasonable answer, because gas is the only part that involves standing somewhere watching a total go up. Everything else arrives annually, or once, or never as a payment at all.

So here is the whole thing, worked out with federal figures rather than estimates. The example is an eighteen-thousand-dollar used car kept eight years and sold for six thousand.

Purchase price

Resale value at the end

Years you keep it

Miles per yearFHWA, Highway Statistics 2023, Tabelle VM-1: 11.026 Meilen je Fahrzeug und Jahr (Light Duty, kurzer Radstand)

Consumption per 100 miles (gallons or kWh)FHWA, Highway Statistics 2023, Tabelle VM-1: 24,7 Meilen je Gallone, also 4,05 Gallonen je 100 Meilen

Price per gallon or kWhEIA, U.S. Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices: Mittel der 52 Wochen bis 17.08.2026 (Spanne 2,78 bis 4,50)

Insurance per yearNAIC, Auto Insurance Database Report: 1.281 USD Durchschnittsausgabe je versichertem Fahrzeug (2023)

Registration and fees per yearBLS, Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024: 148 USD Zulassung plus 63 USD Kfz-Vermoegensteuer je Haushalt, bei 1,8 Fahrzeugen

Maintenance and repairs per yearBLS, Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024: 984 USD Wartung und Reparatur je Haushalt abzueglich 217 USD Reifen, bei 1,8 Fahrzeugen

Tyres per yearBLS, Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024, Posten 480110: 217 USD je Haushalt bei 1,8 Fahrzeugen

Inspection

Parking per month

This calculation runs on our server and is not stored – neither your result nor your entry.

per month

$417

Fuel only

$1,558

Underestimated by

$3,445

Item	per year
Depreciation	$1,500
Insurance	$1,281
Tax	$117
Parking	$0
Inspection	$0
Fuel or electricity	$1,558
Maintenance and repairs	$426
Tyres	$121
Total	$5,003

That is 45.4 cents per mile.

Assumptions behind this calculation

Inspection, interval in years: 1
Years kept: 8
Miles per year: 11,026
Excluding financing costs. If the car is on credit, interest comes on top.

Miles per year: 11,026, the average for a light-duty short-wheelbase vehicle.^[1]
Fuel consumption: 24.7 miles per gallon for the same class, which is 4.05 gallons per hundred miles.^[1]
Gasoline: 3.49 dollars a gallon, the mean of the 52 weeks to 17 August 2026. The range across that year was 2.78 to 4.50.^[2]
Insurance: 1,281 dollars, the countrywide average expenditure per insured vehicle.^[3]
Maintenance, tires and registration: from household spending divided by the 1.8 vehicles an average household owns.^[4]

The largest single line is depreciation, and it is the one that never appears as a payment. A car bought for eighteen thousand and sold eight years later for six has cost fifteen hundred dollars a year before it has moved a foot. You do not feel it monthly. You feel it once, on the day you sell, and by then it reads as bad luck rather than as the cost it was.

That is why the gas answer is so persistent. It is not ignorance. It is that gas is the only part of car ownership with a receipt.

Not necessarily sell the car. For a great many people in the United States a car is not a lifestyle choice, it is the condition of having a job, and an article that concludes otherwise is written for somewhere with trains. The useful outcome is smaller and more durable: you now know the real per-mile number, which means the next decision, a second car, a longer commute for more pay, a more expensive replacement, can be made with the whole figure instead of the gas.

Put your own numbers in

The calculator above starts from national averages. Yours will differ, and the two that move the total most are the purchase-minus-resale gap and the insurance. Both are on documents you already have.

Frequently asked

Does this include financing?

No. The calculation covers the cost of owning and running the car, not the cost of borrowing to buy it. If you have a loan, add the interest portion of your payments on top. That is deliberately separate, because a loan is a decision about money rather than about the car.

Why is inspection zero?

There is no U.S.-wide periodic inspection requirement, and where a state charges one the fee generally sits inside registration, which is already counted. Putting a number in both places would count it twice.

Sources

Highway Statistics 2023, Table VM-1: 11,026 miles per light-duty short-wheelbase vehicle and year, 24.7 miles per gallon, Federal Highway Administration, retrieved August 22, 2026.
U.S. Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices: 3.49 dollars per gallon as the mean of the 52 weeks to 17 August 2026, range 2.78 to 4.50, U.S. Energy Information Administration, retrieved August 22, 2026.
Auto Insurance Database Report: countrywide average expenditure of 1,281 dollars per insured vehicle in 2023, National Association of Insurance Commissioners, retrieved August 22, 2026.
Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024, per consumer unit: 984 dollars maintenance and repairs, 217 dollars tires, 148 dollars vehicle registration, 63 dollars vehicle property tax, 1.8 vehicles owned, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, retrieved August 22, 2026.