A 5,000 km road trip in a $25,000 car can have a depreciation line larger than the gas line. Most "fuel cost calculators" never mention this. This one does.
DC fast charging typically costs 2–4× home charging. The mix above weights public DC at 3× home rate.
All values in the currency selected above.
Fill in the trip and click Calculate.
Total all-in cost
— per person · — per day · — per km
The most common road trip cost error is ignoring the cost of putting extra miles on the car. For a 5,000 km trip in a car worth $20,000, depreciation alone can run $700–$1,200 — more than the gas on many routes. Add tire wear (a long road trip uses up a meaningful slice of tire life) and the cost-per-km of a "free" personal car starts looking very different.
If your real-cost calculation is wildly different from a simple gas + hotel estimate, something is off in the inputs — usually vehicle value, depreciation assumption, or the fuel economy figure. The breakdown panel makes those assumptions visible so you can sanity check them.
Yes — if you'd sell the car afterwards. If you'd keep it for 10 more years regardless, the depreciation is a non-cash loss but still real, because you could have sold the car at the start and bought a cheaper one for daily use. Most accounting frameworks treat it as a cost. The 0.15 per km default here is conservative; many sources cite 0.20–0.30 for new cars.
For most current EVs on a trip under 4,000 km, yes — the per-km energy cost is roughly 1/3 of an ICE vehicle. But EVs have two costs that can flip the math: (1) battery degradation from frequent DC fast charging (often 5–10% over 100,000 km of fast charging), and (2) high-mileage depreciation is steeper than ICE. We do not model battery degradation by default; treat the EV result as a best case.
Set "vehicle value" to the daily rental rate × trip days, and skip depreciation. Rental companies already bake depreciation into their daily rate, often with a per-km surcharge above 200 km/day. Many rentals cap daily mileage — verify yours before you assume unlimited.
The defaults (0.15/km depreciation, $600 tire set, $120 service every 10,000 km) are mid-range estimates for a typical mid-size car in good condition. Luxury cars, commercial vehicles, and older cars will differ significantly. Edit any of these in advanced mode (not exposed in v1 — use a spreadsheet for full customization).
Because for a single road trip the difference between sedan tires ($400–$600 set) and truck tires ($800–$1,200) is on the order of $20–$60 over the whole trip. It does not change the strategic question of "is driving cheaper than flying?" — only the precise number. We chose a mid-range default to keep the tool simple.
The Road Trip Real Cost Calculator is part of VoyageCalc. It was built to expose the cost lines (depreciation, tires, maintenance) that free online gas-cost calculators leave out, and to give a transparent Gas-vs-EV comparison without marketing bias. Defaults are documented in the FAQ above; everything is editable in the form.
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Output is for planning only. Per-km depreciation, tire wear, and maintenance allocation are averages; your actual values depend on vehicle age, model, tire choice, and service contract. Fuel and electricity prices fluctuate. Always cross-check with a current fuel-price app and your vehicle's service records for serious decisions.