There are plenty of hidden costs involved in buying and driving a new vehicle, from depreciation to maintenance. If you add them all up, the national average cost hit $9666 this year, according to AAA.
Different vehicle segments stand out in different ways, with electric vehicles having low per-mile charges but high depreciation, while half-ton pickups have the highest overall driving costs.
Changes in methodology mean it’s not easy to directly compare annual average costs through the years, but AAA does point out that when it did its first Your Driving Costs study, in 1950, gas was 27 cents a gallon and the average car cost nine cents a mile to run.
Read the article at Car and Driver.