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About this tool
Estimate yearly savings from moving to a smaller car or a single-vehicle household, including fuel, insurance, depreciation and payback.
The Vehicle Downsizing Savings calculator compares the full annual cost of running your vehicles today against running one smaller vehicle instead, and reports the yearly saving, the fuel and CO2 avoided, and how long the switch takes to pay for itself. Each vehicle is costed the way a total-cost-of-ownership model does it: fuel from distance divided by fuel economy, plus insurance, maintenance, parking and depreciation charged on the vehicle's current market value rather than its original price. The trips that lose a vehicle are priced too, through an added cab or public-transport line, so the saving is not flattered by pretending they disappear.
Open Vehicle Downsizing Savings on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Pick Fuel type, tick 'The household runs a second vehicle today' if it applies, then fill Distance per year (km), Fuel economy (km per litre or kg), Insurance per year (₹), Service and repairs per year (₹), Parking per year (₹) and Resale value today (₹) under Vehicle you run today, Second vehicle in the household and Vehicle you would keep or buy
Under Shared figures and the switch set Fuel price (₹ per litre or kg), Depreciation (% of value per year), Added cab and transit per year (₹), Price of the replacement (₹) and Cash from selling what you let go (₹)
Saving per year after downsizing heads the panel, with Cost now — total per year, After — total per year, After — added cab and transit, Fuel avoided per year, CO2 avoided per year, One-time cost to switch, Payback period and Cost per km now against Cost per km after listed below; Copy result copies the comparison and Reset restores the defaults
The largest cost of owning a car is charged on today's market value, not ignored.
An added cab and transit line stops the saving from being overstated.
Shows the break-even month alongside litres and kilograms of CO2 avoided.
Even a lightly used second car carries its fixed costs in full: insurance, road-side annual maintenance, parking, and depreciation of roughly 10-15% of its current value each year. A car worth ₹6 lakh losing 12% a year is shedding ₹72,000 in value before a single litre of fuel is burnt, which is usually far more than the fuel it saves.
No. If the smaller car is bought new at a high price, its depreciation can exceed the fuel, insurance and servicing it saves — a newer vehicle loses more rupees per year than an older one even at the same percentage. Downsizing saves most when the replacement is already owned, or is bought used at a price close to what the outgoing car sells for.
Add fuel, insurance, maintenance, parking and annual depreciation for the year, then divide by the kilometres driven in that year. Low-mileage vehicles look expensive on this measure because the fixed costs spread over few kilometres, which is exactly why a car driven under about 5,000 km a year is often cheaper to replace with cabs.
Burning a litre of petrol releases about 2.31 kg of CO2 and a litre of diesel about 2.68 kg, so the saving is the litres avoided multiplied by that factor. Cutting 250 litres a year of petrol avoids roughly 578 kg of CO2 — tank-to-wheel only, excluding the emissions from producing and delivering the fuel.
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