how much does running a car cost?

I’m returning to education, and because of the rural area in which I live, I shall need a car to get to schools to do supply on a daily basis. So, I shall have to ‘buy’ a car. Which brings into question how much a car costs to run, the issue of ownership, petrol costs, taxes, and so on. Also, a brief look at current ‘alternative’ solutions like Zipcar and a local car-trader down the road who is trying to compete with a low-tech solution, and then we’ll look at how an ecosquared car use may be financed. And if cars don’t rock your boat, we’ll look at other applications of the same math such as with health, revealing a fundamental core to economics: the relationship between capital (a static fund) and regular payments.

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everyday running costs of ownership

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These costs are ‘reasonable’ for running an average car; with new cars devalue, replace the ‘maintenance’ costs with devaluation. ‘Upgrade’ is the amount of money that is put aside to pay for a new car; eg sell a car at a loss of £500 over the year will mean that the new one will be bought to re-coupe that loss; that is, it will cost £50/month to just stay ‘level’.

Still, if you have a car, these costs are reasonable. That’s £3000 to £5000 a year! Cars burn money…

running costs of rental

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Roughly £400, which is £250/£100 more than ownership. No head-aches of ownership. New car. Surely there should be a non-new rental deal out there? There was, but more of that later. Let’s look an a new ‘alternative’ to rent/buy.

‘alternatives’ like zipcar

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 Based on a trip daily to work and back, clearly Zipcar isn’t the right solution. Another one is Uber, but that’s beyond the horizon at the moment; it’s touted to do to logistics what Amazon did to book-selling, and everything else-selling, kinda. It’s what ecosquared will be competing with a few years down the line, if we’re not clever.

a guy down the road called Darren…

I spoke with a guy last night, Darren Sharpe, an interesting guy. He was ahead of the curve and came up with ‘rent-a-banger‘, basically renting out non-new cars. He ran this for 15 years, but the insurance was a real head-ache, and people abused the system; as we know people take care of things they own, and tend to trash or neglect rented cars, flats, tools — a mentality shift which is critical for longer term sharing solutions.

Now, Darren sells five-year old cars for £2k, and guarantees buy-back at £50/week. So, if you want to return the car say 10 weeks down the road, he will buy it back for £1,500. Thus, cost of use is £200/month PLUS £100/£200 ownership costs. That is, using Darren’s system you need £2k capital, and it costs £150/month more than ownership.

summary of current offerings out there at the time of writing

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Looks like ownership is still the cheapest way to run a car, with all the head-aches that ownership entails. Basically there is a financial separation between the players: the owner of the car, those who build the roads and the insurers, the car-mechanics who maintain it, and the company employees who supply the petrol. They are all working together, using the same economic system, with the belief that competition provides us with the best service at the lowest cost.

ecosquared?

Well, it depends on what scale the ecology is at. Let’s say it we have levels of social saturation, which I’ve used before, but in reverse order this time, from the ‘fantastic’ to the realistic, me now looking for a car:

  • Yellow Saturation with massive game-changing coverage
  • Blue Network where a wide sector of people are sharing within ecosquared protocols
  • Green Team of a few people connected and using the protocols
  • Red Solo just starting with only you using the protocols

Yellow Saturation

A world where there are enough people in the network to own Esso; where the users and employees of the petrol stations are the shareholders, have %-equity. Nobody is making a profit from the petrol you get at the station. You drive up, fill up the tank, resource use is tabulated, you drive away. No money transaction. Of course, your petrol use may be higher or lower than others, and this is related to how often you use the car. Remember, none of it is yours: its an economy of use, not possession.

(By the way, Esso is evaluated at $300b. 100million people putting in £3000 each (the cost of petrol for a year for some folk) could buy Esso outright. That’s something to think about. An FTP open moneystream of $300b; that’s everyone on the planet contributed $40 each. Will we ever reach this ‘fantastic’ situation? Well, we have the protocols. We have the intention and love and trust between us as friends and family… we just lack the trust in their operation. We are trapped by our traditional mechanics.)

And the cost of petrol is much lower in certain countries, those which have decentralised their government. Just like Esso is %-equity crowd-shared, so is ‘government’. A double win for the folk who manage that first!

Blue Network

A car-pool where insurance is brought within the fold. That is, a crowd-owned insurance company. Again, no-one is making money out of us. When an accident occurs, it is covered by FTP. Of course, it comes down to trusting people to drive cars around. Do you give a super-dooper car to a young man? Only if he proves he can drive well. Insurance companies have the math worked out in terms of rates of injury etc. We should be using this math to simply reduce costs of premium, or in our case FTP contribution towards this BitCar project. Money is not put into the organisation competing with other organisations, a massive marketing and advertising game, both externally and internally.

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This is from Direct Line’s 2012 Annual Report (p98).Operating costs 25% of revenue, over a £1billion. That’s a lot of ‘financial’ machinery being paid for.

In terms of ecosquared, we don’t want an insurance company; in fact, we don’t want any company for that matter. We simply use the assurance we have between us: MTTP for p2p, and FTP for one to many. If some network of people give a flash car to one of their group, and they don’t have the resources locally to cover it if things go wrong, then they will require other networks to subsidise them. This is the typical fission-fusion and 1:5 grouping that all kids are familiar with by the age of 11. Not complicated. Fractally complex, but essentially — mathematically and psycho-socially — simple.

Green Team

For this to work, the team has to be concentrated. That is, people who live close by, who share the same garage for example. Each participant ‘owns’ their car in the sense of paying for Road Tax and Insurance (£50-£100/month). Instead of paying for when the car breaks down, a contribution is made to keep the car running smoothly. How much? Depends on how many cars are in the network and the size of the garage, but let’s say around £50/month. They may need to take more people on during periods of stress, or pass cars on to other garages if the demand is too high, as occurs nowadays. And when things are slow, cars are invited in to upgrade them. The objective is to keep cars healthy, so that they do not ‘lose’ their value. Courses are put on to invite owners to be involved in the maintenance of their cars.

Instead of saving funds in private banks, or accessing credit, participants GIFT(£50/month) for the use of the car, FTP{Bitcar}. This accumulated FTP (within a year, 10 car-owners accumulate £6000) not only attracts other car-owners to the network, but can operate like insurance, and to buy in new car, perhaps when a member of the community gets to driving age.

Red Solo

Difficult. Two things possible: hack ownership, and share %-equity in the income enabled by car-use.

hacking ownership

Let’s say I manage to generate the funds to ‘own’ a car at £2k. Let’s say I give-it(car)-forwards-to the ‘BitCar’ project. I also give-it(£50)-forwards-to FTP. Which means I have 100%-equity in all three ecosquare value vectors, Vp Vk Vi, namely the Aggregate (ie the car), FTP or Moneystream (which will be £300 by summer), and SEA.

Who knows how I can leverage this in the future? Perhaps attracting others to the Bitcar project? Perhaps someone may wish to GIFT(car)(£50). Perhaps, I will be able to give my car to someone (rather than selling it), and produce the dynamics described in the Green Team? Either because I leave the country and don’t need the car, or I buy a new car. Perhaps I can use the FTP to buy a new car, and thus include the car within the BitCar network?

So, running costs are identical to ‘ownership’, only difference is, the money that normally goes into the ‘bank’ (for whatever nefarious purposes they put it to) when saving up is replaced with FTP, an open-money-stream:

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invest in people, not things — we are the ones ‘making’ the money anyway

Secondly, an alternative way of thinking about this, is to think what the car enables. I will be able to teach, making around £80/day after tax. The car enables this. Without the car, I can’t get to school. So, in a way, the person who gives me the car, is enabling me — they deserve some %-equity in my income. If I make £1600/month, what %-equity would they want? Same goes for the garage mechanic — how much %-equity do they deserve?

Whoever has contributed the car (£2k), the mechanics at the garage (£50/month), I still have to pay for insurance and road tax (£50/month). Based on a plan which is half-way between rent and ownership, at around £250/month, those who supply the car should get around £200/month, which is 12.5%-equity of my income stream.

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After one year, the ‘owner’ has recouped their investment, and the garage has made £323.99, regardless of the repairs. Total, £2400 to use the car.

Now, with this kind of relationship, if I kept using the car by the end of the second year, the car-gifter will have made £1722.78 ‘profit’, and the garage another £750 from the second year to cover the costs of maintenance. Total, £4800 to use the car over two years.

A few questions may come to mind, about what the gifter of the car may do — perhaps offer a better one, and if so, what is the rate now? And does the garage-mechanic keep getting more and more until they are taking all of the 12.5% equity reserved for car use? Well, funnily enough, no. It tends to a number. After 10 years, for example, the car-gift owner will be getting £50/month and the garage-mechanic £150/month. Perhaps the car will require that amount of maintenance, but probably not.

the core of economics: numbers and time

Whatever your interest is in cars, the math pattern deserves attention. Why? Because it shows the relationship between capital and regular investment. Think about this in a completely different field — health. Do you pay for health treatment when something goes wrong (capital), or should you be paying a regular investment for health (regular)?

This relationship is at the heart of all our finances: the difference between a static lump sum and regular payment.

FTP, the accumulation of money as an index of trust within a network, combines both: regular payments to a static ‘standing wave’ of money. Where is this money? Well, it is like a bank, but unlike a bank, accumulated FTP does not get used. Like MTTP guarantee, it remains in escrow between the parties. So, FTP acts more like a guarantee, to be released if not enough revenue is generated from what is co-created; to ‘buy out’ those who do not wish to have %-equity in the co-created product.

The thing to get your head around is that %-equity is at the base of new economics, ecosquared or otherwise. Moneyflow is secondary.

And there is a race going on: as capitalism gets finer and finer in resolution, turning everyone and his dog into a capitalist, versus the sharing economy, where we are all part of a greater whole, a collaborative commons, where we share everything. Capitalism has massive momentum, institutionally, mechanically (financially), and psychologically. The internet has cracked open a massive opportunity in the form of open-source and it rejuvenated the commons and after a decade a massive sharing meme. But are the proponents of the sharing economy fooled by their relative luxury, royalty within the citadel playing games because they live in a world of material abundance?

It’s a tough call, and we each have to make it. We do so in our daily actions. We do so with every single financial transaction. I for one, am not convinced, as I turn to ‘buying’ a car, filling it with petrol regularly, and fueling the current system which is so destructive to our environment, and our collective soul.

2 comments
  1. Looking at this post after a few months, now that I have bought a car, I can’t understand it — and I wrote it!!! The general ideas are not clear enough — too much detail — and the details are not precise enough — too vague! No wonder people can’t follow things I write.

    So, I spent £800 on a car, immediately had to fork out another £200 for breaks, and an additional £140 for initial insurance payment. I also paid a full year’s road tax at around £220. Ok, these are not particularly precise again… Total was around £1200 for the car, and if we split the road tax and insurance into monthly payments, that’s £65/month. I have not been putting aside any money for MOT, which will be in two months, or any upgrade, though the cash is collecting in a bank from the work I have been doing.

    Because I am operating this solo, the two options given in the Red Solo section is to GIFT(car) or gift car to myself for a %-equity of my income. Let me examine these two now.

    If I Gift(car) to a project called {BitCar}, the Aggregator would record this as a car in the ‘commons’. It does not matter what the estimated worth of the car is, it could be £800, it is that the car is part of the commons. Also, I Gift(£50/month) which contributes to the FTP. This FTP may have a fractional element, {BitCar}, which accumulates. So, let’s say I started this in January, the FTP{BitCar} would be £200. The current FTP would increment to a grand total of $590, of which $331 is nominally tagged as part of the project{BitCar}. (See http://1tothen.com/ for current FTP.)

    The car could then be used by anyone, who is willing to pay for the upkeep of the car, that is. Hmm… not so clear. I would probably have to include the road-tax in the aggregator, so the value of the car is around £1000 with the road tax. The person the car is gifted to would have to cover insurance and obviously running costs. Would they have to pay for MOT? I guess so, and perhaps this would be included with the Aggregator. If they did, my original 100% equity in the car would be reduced by whatever they are putting in to keep the car running. If they spend eg £100 on the MOT and service, I would be reduced to 91%, and the new user would have 9% of it.

    This means, that when it is sold out of the commons to a private dude for eg $800, I would get £727 and the new user would get £63. Seems reasonable.

    However, what about the running costs? Shouldn’t the petrol costs be tagged to, included within the Aggregator? I have spent around £60/week on petrol in the last six weeks, and before that, about £60 every two weeks for a month; total £480. When the new user gets the car, the equity would be 94% for me and 6% for the new user. Interesting.

    The more a user spends on their car, the more %-equity they get in it, whether it is to conduct MOT, or simply drive around in it. Interesting. This is completely opposite to the current financial model, where the car evaluation simply goes down. With our system, it goes up. Of course, the current model decreases the value of the car because of wear and tear, how much it will cost to service and repair it, and so on; as well as a factor of how much people are willing to pay for it. In the current system, the ‘cost’ of a car, is measured on the ‘cost’ of labour for manufacture (including labour of extraction of natural resources and conversion into commodities). In our system, we measure the future-orientation of moneyflow. So, the Aggregator accumulates the money spent that ‘leaves’ the commons, whether to petrol stations or insurance companies and the like. There is only the FTP(£200) that ‘comes in’ from the outside to accumulate in the commons in a way which is associated with the car.

    Right, that’s one way, Gifting(car). What about the other way? Investing in the person. This is a little tricky, because the person in question is me.

    If I gift the car to someone, I would like a %-equity of the income. This seems a little harder to calculate, and also to enforce. And it sounds too much like rent too. If they pay me £100/month, I’d make back £1200 in a year. That means if they make say £1000/month, 10% of their income stream comes my way. I enabled them, with the use the car. Still… this one seems… wrong. I am sure it makes sense at a higher level of understanding, at a system level — ie, what happens to the money flowing towards me, flows to others, that kind of thing — but still, it doesn’t feel like a gift. Will have to think of this a little more…

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