I bought a used car. It was much more expensive than using Uber or Lyft.
Alex Bitter/BI
No one had ever been this excited about a used Toyota Yaris.That was my thought as my wife and I picked up the keys to the car we found on Facebook Marketplace one morning in August 2025. For the first time in seven years of living in the Washington, DC area, we were car owners.It was also a rebuke of sorts for one of the companies I write about most often. For years, Uber executives have said that the company's gig-worker drivers — and, increasingly, the self-driving cars on its app — compete with car ownership.Uber President Andrew MacDonald told a podcast last month that the rising cost of a new car makes owning one a worse deal than several years ago. And CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said last year that the rise of robotaxis will reduce car ownership over the next two decades, making driving a car yourself look "something like horseback riding."So, did I make a horrible mistake spending just over $6,000 on a used sub-compact car that's effectively the next draft horse?Last month, one year after buying my Yaris, I decided to add up all my expenses and compare them with the previous year, when I was car-free and relied on Uber, Lyft, and public transportation.Your milage my vary. Your own calculation will depend on where you live, the cost of your car, how fast it depreciates, and the current price of gas (or charging, if you drive an EV).My results showed that Uber might have a point.The costs of a Toyota Yaris add upMy wife and I decided we wanted a car last summer when we realized that parking at our apartment complex was free.
