Sunday, November 1, 2015

Car Ownership vs Taxi Hailing App - What makes financial sense?

Yesterday, I used the Olacabs app to book a autorickshaw to go to Bangalore's Wholesale market - K R Market and back to home. Total cost was Rs 75+ Rs 55 = Rs 130

If I had driven, I would have burned atleast 2 liters of petrol that would have cost me close to Rs130 + parking of Rs 30 or so totaling to around Rs 160. Worry, stress and struggle to find parking are free.

I just did a quick math to see if it made financial sense to sell my car and purely depend on taxi hailing apps for my family's commute.

My daily home office home run is around 30kms. Weekend travel is very limited and is usually around 20kms over the weekend.

Some assumptions I made for the analysis
1. The car owned is a mass produced petrol hatchback/entry sedan with a fuel efficiency of 12 kms/liter
2. Took the most expensive cab category - sedan. mini and auto are a bit cheaper. Not considered the peak hrs rate
3.  I would rent out my apartment parking space :)
4. Took the most expensive insurance which would be atleast Rs 1000/month for a 2 yrs old car
5. Assumed a maintenance cost of Rs 4000/year
6. Other expenses like -car wash etc add to Rs 1000 per month
7. User buys a new car every 4 to 5 years

This is how it looks

Car Ownership cost/month
Category Cost
EMI/Month  INR        15,000
fuel  INR          5,250
Insurace/Month  INR          1,000
Maintenance  INR             333
Others  INR          1,000
   
Total/Month  INR        22,583

This is the typical Taxi costs across different categories today in Bangalore
Type   kms rate Rate/km
Mini Slab 1 4 80 20
  Slab 2 1 10 10
Sedan Slab 1 4 100 25
  Slab 2 1 13 13
Auto Slab 1 2 25 12.5
  Slab 2 1 10 10

This is what it would cost by using a taxi hailing app

Taxi Type Sedan
Home-Office-Home  
One way Distance in Kms 15
Slab 1 Cost in INR  INR           100
Slab 2 Cost in INR  INR           143
   
Cost/trip in INR  INR           243
No of office days 20
Total Cost/month in INR  INR       9,720
Other Commutes  
kms 10
Slab 1 Cost in INR  INR           100
Slab 2 Cost in INR  INR             78
   
Cost/trip in INR  INR           178
No commute days 20
Total Cost/month in INR  INR       7,120
Total Cab Cost/Month  INR     16,840

So the monthly savings
Savings by using Taxi hailing  INR          5,743
Rent from my parking in Apt  INR          1,000
total savings  INR          6,743

Of course, there are costs that will reduce every year like insurance and costs that would increase like Taxi cost etc 
After a 4 to 5 years there is no EMI

What my calculations says is that if you have not purchased a car yet you do not have to if your commute is similar to the case study above.

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