The payment is the part you notice. Depreciation is the part you feel later. See the real monthly cost of any car — broken into the six lines dealers do not put on the window sticker.
Per Experian's Q4 2024 State of the Automotive Finance Market report, the average new-car loan payment is $742 a month. Per AAA's 2024 Your Driving Costs report, the average new-car true cost is $1,025 a month. The difference — about $283 a month, or 28% of total — is depreciation, insurance, fuel, maintenance, and fees combined. The loan is what shows up on your bank statement; the other 28% is what shows up in your life.
Source: Experian Q4 2024 SOAFM; AAA YDC 2024.
Per AAA's 2024 fact sheet, depreciation averages $4,680 a year — 38% of the $12,297 total — across the 9-category vehicle sample. Per KBB's 2024 Best Resale Value data, the average vehicle loses 57.6% of its sticker price in 5 years. Depreciation isn't a bill anyone writes; it's a loss invisible until you sell. The Mosaic surfaces it as the largest tile for most cars in most states because the math says it is.
Source: AAA YDC 2024; KBB 2024 Best Resale Value awards.
Per NAIC's 2023 Auto Insurance Database Report, average premium ranges from about $1,322 a year in Idaho (lowest) to $4,031 a year in New York (full coverage, highest). Florida averages about $3,180 a year. The same driver in the same car can pay 3 times more in one state than another. This is why state input matters more than annual mileage for many Shoppers — the insurance variance often outweighs the gas variance.
Source: NAIC 2023 Average Premium Supplement, pub June 2025.
Per EPA FuelEconomy.gov + EIA monthly electricity data, a 2024 Tesla Model 3 at 12,000 miles a year and home charging runs $50-80 a month in fuel vs $100-130 a month in gasoline for a comparable ICE compact. Maintenance on the BEV is about 30-40% lower per RepairPal. But per iSeeCars 5-year depreciation studies, 2024-vintage BEVs depreciate faster than mainstream ICE — about 60% vs 50% over 5 years. The Mosaic shows both: operating costs win, depreciation loses.
Source: EPA FuelEconomy.gov; EIA Electric Power Monthly; iSeeCars 2024 BEV depreciation study.
Most car owners think the loan payment IS the cost. The real number is roughly a third higher per AAA, and for most cars in most states the biggest single line item is the one nobody writes a check for. This tool computes the true cost of owning a car from sourced data — your car, your state, your usage — with six tiles sized by where the money actually goes.
Per the 2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, US households spend an average of $1,110 a month on transportation — about 17% of total household spending, second only to housing at 33%. The American Automobile Association's 2024 Your Driving Costs report puts the per-vehicle average for a new car at $1,025 a month across nine vehicle categories. The number you actually live with depends heavily on your state, your annual mileage, and which car you bought.
A 2024 Honda Civic in California at 12,000 miles a year computes to about $658 a month under the tool's defaults. The same Civic in Florida computes to about $707 a month, but the inside of the math shifts: in California, depreciation is the largest tile; in Florida, insurance flips to the top. That flip — same car, different state, different largest line item — is the headline insight this tool surfaces. Most existing calculators report a single total and bury the breakdown in a footer note. This one surfaces the breakdown as the primary visualization and asks you to look at where your money is actually going.
Six lines make up the real monthly cost, and only one of them shows up as a monthly bill. Per AAA's 2024 fact sheet, the average new car at 15,000 miles a year costs $4,680 a year in depreciation (38% of the $12,297 annual total), $2,019 in insurance, $1,694 in fuel, $1,519 in maintenance, $1,332 in finance charges, and $839 in registration and taxes. The loan payment most Shoppers fixate on covers about 60-70% of the true cost; the remaining 30-40% is what the tool calls the hidden tail.
For most users it's depreciation that dominates; sometimes it's fuel or insurance — your Mosaic shows which. KBB's 2024 Best Resale Value data anchors the depreciation number: the average 2024 model-year vehicle retains 42.4% of its sticker price after 5 years, which means 57.6% of the price has vanished into the residual market. On a $25,000 Civic, that's about $14,000 you never see. On a $76,000 BMW M3, it's about $38,000. Depreciation scales with sticker price, which is why higher-MSRP vehicles almost always have depreciation as the largest tile no matter the state — even in the highest-insurance states.
NAIC's 2023 Auto Insurance Database Report — the canonical state-regulator dataset — puts Florida's average premium per insured vehicle at about $3,180 a year, against a national average of $1,281. At 12,000 miles a year on a 2024 Civic, that insurance line alone runs $265 a month. Depreciation on the same Civic is $214 a month. The flip happens because Florida's insurance premium is high enough, and the Civic's MSRP is low enough, that insurance overtakes depreciation as the single biggest monthly outlay. Florida is the cleanest flip case in the tool's 306-vehicle pool, but Michigan and Louisiana flip too, both for similar reasons: high state insurance averages crossed with sub-$30,000 MSRPs.
This pattern reverses above about $50,000 in MSRP. The same Florida insurance line on a BMW M3 still runs $265 a month, but the M3's $76,000 sticker price drives depreciation to $633 a month — about 2.4 times the next-largest line. Insurance can't catch a six-digit MSRP. The flip only triggers on compact-and-mid-size vehicles in drama-tier insurance states.
EPA's FuelEconomy.gov pegs the 2024 Tesla Model 3 at 25 kWh per 100 miles. EIA's monthly Electric Power report puts Texas residential electricity at about $0.135 per kilowatt-hour. At 12,000 miles a year and home L2 charging, the Tesla's fuel line is $51 a month — about half of what a comparable ICE compact sedan pays for gasoline. Maintenance on the same Tesla runs $35 a month, the lowest in the 306-vehicle pool, because BEV powertrains have fewer moving parts and no oil changes. The combined operating cost (fuel + maintenance) is about $86 a month, compared to about $134 for the Civic in Florida.
But the Tesla's depreciation runs $406 a month in Texas — almost double the Civic's $214. BEVs depreciate faster than mainstream ICE cars in the 2024-2026 vintage, per iSeeCars 5-year depreciation studies, because used-market BEV pricing is still settling after the federal credit changes and Tesla's price cuts. The BEV story isn't that they're free to operate; it's that operating costs win while depreciation loses. The tool shows both at the same time so the trade is visible.
At the extreme end of the pool, the 2024 Lucid Air Sapphire in California computes to about $3,744 a month all-in, of which depreciation alone is $2,838 a month — six times the next-largest line. The vehicle's $250,500 MSRP combined with a 32% 5-year residual means about $171,000 of value vanishes from year 1 to year 5. That number is bigger than the median US household income for the same 5-year window. The tool surfaces it as a single tile because the math is the math, and a Shopper considering an ultra-luxury BEV deserves to see the depreciation line at full magnitude before they sign.
The same dynamic holds for ultra-luxury ICE — a Mercedes-Benz S-Class at $117,000 MSRP and 30% 5-year residual drives depreciation to $1,365 a month. The luxury-vehicle Mosaic almost always shows a single dominant tile, with the other five compressed underneath. There's no flip case at this MSRP tier.
The tool reports a monthly true cost and a 5-year cumulative under stated assumptions: state averages for insurance, fuel, and registration; KBB or iSeeCars residuals for depreciation; RepairPal or AAA-segment averages for maintenance; Fed G.19 baseline APR for financing. Every number on the Mosaic carries an inline hedge phrase and a tap-expand drilldown that names the source. The refinement toggle lets a Shopper with a real dealer quote, a real insurance quote, or a real APR offer override the defaults — the tool recomputes live.
The tool does not predict resale market shifts, gas-price spikes, insurance regulatory changes, or future EV depreciation curves. It does not model public DC fast-charging cost for BEVs (home L2 assumption with hedge). It does not include parking by default (urban add-on toggle in refinement). It does not include the opportunity cost of the down payment invested elsewhere — that math exists in the related Investment Calculator tool, intentionally separated to avoid anti-car framing. The tool reports a measurement under the user's inputs, not a recommendation about whether to buy the car.
The biggest cost of owning a car is usually the one you never write a check for. On a compact sedan in most states, that's depreciation. In Florida and a few other drama-tier insurance states, it's insurance. On a 25,000-mile-a-year commuter, it can be fuel. On an ultra-luxury BEV, it's depreciation by a country mile. The Mosaic exists because the breakdown matters more than the total — the total tells you what you'll spend, but the breakdown tells you where, and the where is what dealers don't show you.
Reviewed by Planimora Research · Last reviewed 2026-05 against 2024 BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey + AAA YDC 2024 + KBB 2024-2026 + NAIC 2023 + EPA FuelEconomy.gov + EIA Weekly + Fed G.19 Q3 2025 + Experian Q4 2024 + FHWA MV-103. Updated quarterly when underlying data refreshes.
A measurement. Not financial advice.
Money math
See what happens if you put the loan-equivalent monthly into an index fund instead — the opportunity-cost side of every car purchase.
Money math
Track how a dollar's purchasing power shifts over your ownership horizon — the inflation context the depreciation tile lives inside.
Money math
Side-by-side path comparison from the same Counting House family — base-rates rather than headline projections.
Privacy
We use PostHog and Google Analytics to understand how the tools are used. No raw inputs ever leave your browser. Bucketed values only.
The tool computes a monthly true cost as the sum of six lines: depreciation, fuel, insurance, maintenance, financing interest, and fees. Depreciation reads from Kelley Blue Book 5-year residual data for your specific car (or iSeeCars segment averages for vehicles KBB doesn't cover — iSeeCars 5-year depreciation studies are aggregated industry analyses based on listing-price tracking across about 9.6 million used-car listings, treated as Tier 2 industry-standard data per the finance vertical override). Fuel reads from EPA fuel economy ratings crossed with EIA weekly retail gas prices for your state (or EIA monthly residential electricity rates for BEVs). Insurance reads from NAIC 2023 state averages — the most recent state-regulator dataset. Maintenance reads from RepairPal Cost Index 5-year averages or AAA segment averages × Consumer Reports brand multipliers as documented fallback. Financing reads from Federal Reserve G.19 most-recent new-car APR (or Experian Q4 2024 used-car APR for used flag) and shows only the interest portion to avoid double-counting principal with depreciation. Fees read from FHWA Table MV-103 + state DMV registration schedules. Every per-row data point cites its source in the tile drilldown.
A measurement. Not financial advice.
The tool reports state averages — your insurance, registration, and gas prices may differ from your state's mean by a wide margin. Insurance especially varies 2-5× by individual driver profile (record, credit, age, ZIP, vehicle); the refinement toggle lets you override with a real quote. Depreciation math reads from KBB 5-year residual curves averaged across trims — your actual depreciation depends on trim level, color, mileage at sale, and market timing, with variance of about ±15%. Maintenance variance is even wider (about ±20%) because driving style, climate, and service-shop pricing all matter. The financing tile shows interest at the Fed's most-recent national-average APR — your actual rate depends on credit tier and dealer negotiation. The tool does not include parking (excluded by default — urban add-on in refinement), opportunity cost of down payment invested elsewhere (separate tool), tax credits or rebates (separate per-state look-up), or extended warranty costs. The tool measures your current cost under stated assumptions; it does not predict future market shifts.
A measurement. Not financial advice.
Six slices, sized by share of total monthly cost. The largest slice is the darkest sepia and tagged “largest” — for most cars in most states, that slice is depreciation, but it can flip. Florida and a few high-insurance states tip to insurance for compact and mid-size cars. High-mileage drivers (25,000+ miles a year) tip to fuel for low-MPG vehicles in gas-expensive states. The line beneath the result names which category won and why it matters: the cost you do not pay monthly — until you sell for depreciation; same car, different state, different bill for insurance; mileage turns gas into a second payment for fuel. Click any slice or legend row to surface the source, the variance band, and the link to override the default with your real number. The breakdown is the headline — what dealers do not show you in the showroom is not the total, it is where the total goes.
A measurement. Not financial advice.