- In inflation-adjusted (2023) dollars, the full annual cost of owning and driving a new vehicle was 6.4% lower in 2023 ($7,297) than in 2000 ($7,792), combining fuel, depreciation, insurance, maintenance, financing and registration.
- Real cost fell 12.4% from 2000 to a low of $6,826 in 2016, then rebounded 6.9% from that low through 2023, driven by a 2019 BLS insurance-methodology change, pandemic-era vehicle price increases, and the 2021-2022 inflation surge.
- The real-dollar peak of the full 24-year period was 2008, at $8,408.
- In 2023, depreciation is 50.9% of the total cost, fuel just 21.4%, insurance 12.8%, maintenance 7.0%, registration/other 5.3%, and financing 2.6%, consistent with this site's separate national cost-breakdown analysis.
01 Introduction
Public discussion of car costs is almost always about nominal, current-dollar prices, "cars cost more than ever." That's true in nominal terms, but it says nothing about whether owning a car has actually gotten more or less expensive relative to the rest of the economy. This index answers that question directly: it combines every major ownership cost, fuel, depreciation, insurance, maintenance, financing and registration, into a single real (inflation-adjusted) annual figure for every year from 2000 to 2023, the longest span for which a general inflation deflator is currently available in this site's source data.
BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey multi-year files (2000-2024); DOE AFDC inflation adjuster (1998-2023, general CPI-based, 2023 dollars).No single published source currently combines these components into one continuous real-dollar series. Industry cost-of-ownership studies typically report a single current year; this index is built fresh from primary government data for every year independently, using the same methodology throughout.
02 The 24-Year Index
| Year | Nominal | Real (2023 $) |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $4,427 | $7,792 |
| 2004 | $4,837 | $7,788 |
| 2008 | $5,759 | $8,408 |
| 2012 | $5,976 | $8,007 |
| 2016 | $5,375 | $6,826 |
| 2020 | $5,902 | $6,964 |
| 2023 | $7,297 | $7,297 |
Get your own vehicle's full personalized ownership cost, not a historical average.
Use the Calculator03 What Actually Changed
The real-dollar series has three distinct phases. From 2000 to 2008, real cost rose from $7,792 to a 24-year peak of $8,408, driven mainly by rising fuel and vehicle prices ahead of the 2008 financial crisis. From 2008 to 2016, real cost fell sharply to $6,826, a 24-year low, as fuel prices collapsed in 2009 and again from 2014, while fleet fuel economy improved steadily. From 2016 to 2023, real cost rebounded 6.9% to $7,297, driven by a 2019 change in how BLS sources its vehicle insurance estimate (disclosed in Section 05), rising vehicle prices through the pandemic, and the 2021-2022 inflation surge.
Calculated from the index in Section 02.Across the full period, real cost in 2023 was still 6.4% below its 2000 level, despite the recent rebound. The popular narrative that car ownership has simply gotten more expensive over time does not hold up against this longer, inflation-adjusted view; it is more accurate to say real cost fell for most of the 2000s and 2010s and has only partially reversed since.
Calculated: $7,297 / $7,792 - 1 = -6.4%.04 The 2023 Cost Breakdown
Depreciation is, by a wide margin, the largest single component of the real cost, consistent across every year in this index and consistent with this site's separate national ownership-cost breakdown.
Calculated from the 2023 row of the index.| Component | 2023 Nominal | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Depreciation | $3,715 | 50.9% |
| Fuel | $1,558 | 21.4% |
| Insurance | $934 | 12.8% |
| Maintenance and repairs | $513 | 7.0% |
| Registration, licenses, leases and other | $386 | 5.3% |
| Finance charges (interest) | $190 | 2.6% |
05 Methodology, Scope, and Limitations
How each component is calculated
- Fuel: 12,000 miles/year ÷ that year's EPA real-world new-vehicle fleet MPG (Automotive Trends Report Table 2.1) × that year's EIA national annual average regular gasoline price.
- Depreciation: BEA's average expenditure per car ("Overall," Table 7.2.5S, blending domestic and foreign) for that year, times the 5-year-average annual depreciation rate from BLS's age-specific depreciation table (the same rates and method used in True Cost of Car Ownership).
- Insurance, maintenance and repairs, finance charges, registration/licenses/leases/other: BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey household average for that year, divided by that year's BLS figure for average vehicles per consumer unit.
- Real-dollar conversion: each year's nominal total is multiplied by the DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center's inflation adjuster for that year (a general, CPI-based multiplier to 2023 dollars), the same adjuster this site already uses for real-dollar gasoline price comparisons.
Known limitations, disclosed rather than hidden
- 2024 is not yet included. The general inflation adjuster currently available only covers 1998-2023; extending this index to 2024 needs one additional data file (BLS CPI-U, "All items," series CUUR0000SA0), not yet downloaded.
- The BLS insurance series has a documented break in 2019: that year BLS changed the source of its vehicle insurance estimate from its Diary Survey to its Interview Survey. Insurance's contribution to this index rises accordingly starting in 2019; this is a real methodology change at BLS, not a data error on this site's part.
- Depreciation is a national average rate applied to a national average price, not a figure for any specific vehicle, make, or model.
- Fuel uses a fixed 12,000 miles/year assumption for every year in the index, to isolate the cost side of the index from changes in how much Americans drive. Actual average annual mileage has varied modestly over this period.
- This is a new-vehicle-buyer index, not a figure for the average vehicle currently on the road, which is older and has already depreciated past its steepest loss years.
06 Data Sources
- BLS: Consumer Expenditure Survey, multi-year tables, 2000-2024. bls.gov/cex
- BLS: Monthly Labor Review, age-specific vehicle depreciation rates. bls.gov/opub/mlr
- BEA: NIPA Underlying Detail Table 7.2.5S, average expenditure per car. bea.gov
- EPA: The 2025 Automotive Trends Report (EPA-420-R-26-001), Table 2.1. epa.gov/automotive-trends
- EIA: Weekly/annual Retail Gasoline Prices. eia.gov
- DOE AFDC: Average Annual Retail Price of Gasoline, 1950-2023 (inflation adjuster column). afdc.energy.gov