Knightshade
Well-Known Member
"No economic sense" and yet living in The City - I'm guessing you haven't ever lived in Manhattan.
Your guess would be wrong then.
First, one is always balancing economics with quality of life. It makes no economic sense to buy a Model X Performance over a Model X LR+: it's more expensive and less efficient. Yet, people buy those all the time because it improves their quality of life. Same for owning a car to use versus renting for when you need one. Do you really want to take a family vacation in some worn, smelly rent-a-car?
I've rented a LOT of cars.... inside the US, in Canada, and Western Europe, they've always been now more than about 1 year old or newer, and never worn and smelly.
(rentals in a few less developed nations are another story).
Further- unlike cars I own, I'm much more ok with people eating, drinking, etc in rentals.
Plus, I can rent for a trip a significantly bigger car than is useful for daily driving, and one with worse efficiency if I need the space, since I'm only driving it for a week or two instead of the other 50.
Plus the wear and tear I save on my own vehicles.
So again, if the ONLY reason I had a car in NYC was for road trips- that'd be insane financially.
I agree people do insane financial stuff all the time, but I don't suspect that's the driving force for most NYC car owners.
Second, it is more than just road trips. Like heading out to your second home in the Hamptons on weekends. Yeah, it'd be more economical to take the LIRR and then hire a cab/uber/rent, but we're talking convenience and quality of life here.
They have helicopters specifically for that exact route.... that are a lot better for convenience and quality of life than spending 6 hours in traffic on the LIE (worlds largest parking lot) driving the entire length of long island.
(honestly the LIRR is noticably faster unless you're travelling odd hours too)
You're not thinking like a Manhattanite thinks because you haven't lived that life.
I didn't own a second house in the hamptons, but definitely lived in NY (and on the island, just not the hamptons)
You also appear to have read the exact opposite meaning into why I brought up the nonsensically high rate of car ownership in NYC.
It was to point out people REALLY like owning individual cars even in the situations it makes the LEAST economic sense.... so the OTHER folks suggesting robotaxis will magically make most car sales vanish because folks won't want to own their own cars was contraindicated by things like said NYC car ownership stat.
If the NYC folks still own cars in shockingly high %, surely the people with LESS access to great alternatives are even LESS likely to give them up.