Naphthalene invented carsharing

Approximately $450 per month - and the car of your dreams is yours for a year.

Which exactly is the dream car?

Of course, Lada Vesta!

Unfortunately or fortunately, the list of annoyances for this undeniably advantageous offer is not limited to the sole offered model.

1. Limit of three drivers.

I don't understand how the car will determine who is behind the wheel.

By analogy with breathalyzers, will it require you to blow into a tube “or I won’t start”? DNA matches the one submitted when signing the rental agreement – we go, doesn’t match – the system calls the police?

That is, to avoid bio‑material detangling and false triggers, certain types of sex while driving the Vesta under subscription must be excluded, or what?

Some damn inconvenient questions.

2. Limit of 30 000 kilometers per year.

5 days a week, say, 25 km around the city (just to work and back) – that’s 5 × 52.5 × 50 = 13 125 km.

100 km to the mother‑in‑law’s village and back on weekends – another 52.5 × 200 = 10 500 km.

The remainder for other maneuvers like trips to shops, a vacation in the hinterland, a car wash, a free (lol) tire change and other very necessary errands – 6 375 kilometers per year.

That’s… somehow a bit.

Moreover, by my standards – I’m from Minsk and single.

For a more active driver from a larger city, the remainder will probably be near zero.

3. Rental is not leasing.

In a normal car dealership for a normal car you pay money – and eventually you take the car.

But a one‑year rental agreement will free the driver from the curse of owning a Lada Vesta… So here a minus against a plus, net zero.

4. A baseball bat is not included in the equipment.

Any driver (and a Lada Vesta driver in particular) is at least a little bit a baseball player.

I know for sure, when I worked in sports goods – bats were one of our best‑selling items. And a fairly large percentage of baseball players later went to the auto parts department (or came for a Wand of Baseball from there).

In short, in Soviet Russia marketing do you!!

And this is extremely regrettable.

Suppose OSAGO is included in the rental price – for an experienced accident‑free driver in Moscow it’s about 10 k rubles per year, but for a beginner this price triples, and if there was an accident it skyrockets (around 40–45 thousand).

CASCO – again, if it’s a full coverage without deductible, that’s 10 % of the car’s price, which is not cheap at all, even for a mid‑spec Vesta (~85–100 thousand with a deductible). Maintenance – my car goes through it 4 times a year, but according to the schedule it would be 2 – for a Vesta that’s roughly another 30–35 thousand, assuming no repairs are needed. 

Plus loss of market value, about 45–50 % over 3 years; for simplicity we’ll take 15 % per year, which on a car costing 1 500 000 rubles amounts to 225 thousand.

Tax – peanuts, but still another 3 thousand.

In the end, the amount spent on your own car would be roughly this: 

10 thousand OSAGO

85 thousand CASCO

35 thousand maintenance

Loss of market value 225 thousand.

Tax 3 thousand

Total 358 thousand per year. 

At the current rate, the rental for a year comes to 442,800.

Not such a big difference, especially considering the calculation was for an experienced driver and assumed no repair costs, and the maintenance cost was taken from the lower end.

Basically, it turns out that the cost of renting and the cost of owning a car are practically on par, except for one thing – in case of loss of the vehicle, you’ll be given another one, whereas if the car is yours, the headache will also be yours.