The car internal costs are all the costs consumers pay to afford owning and runn

ing an automobile. Normally these private expenditures are divided by fixed or s

tanding costs and variable or running costs. Fixed costs are those ones which do
not depend on the distance travelled by the vehicle and which the owner must pa
y to keep the vehicle ready for use on the road, like insurance or road taxes. V
ariable or running costs are those which depend on the use of the car, like fuel
or tolls.[5]
Compared to other popular modes of passenger transportation, especially buses or
trains, the automobile has a relatively high cost per passenger-distance travel
led.[6] Motorists in the United Kingdom seem to spend on the car an average of r
oughly 1/3 of their average net income,[7] while motorists in Portugal seem to s
pend 1/2 of their net income.[4][3] This situation is reflected in most other We
stern nations. For the average car owner, depreciation constitutes about half th
e cost of running a car.[7] The typical motorist underestimates this fixed cost
by big margin, or even ignores it altogether.[8] The IRS considers, for tax dedu
ction calculations, that the automobile has a total cost for drivers in the USA,
of 0.55 USD/mile, around 0.26 EUR/k