Recently watched [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztHZj6QNlkM) which puts a significant chunk of the cost of owning the vehicle into depreciation. Wouldn’t the loss in value of the vehicle only matter to me if I bought this car with the intent to sell it in the future? I *could* drive the car until the engine block falls apart and it becomes basically unsellable.
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At some point, your car will stop being useable for you. Either you will sell it or you will junk it or you will give it away. Sure, it’s possible that you could keep it forever and cherish it as a beloved collectable, but as a capital expenditure, it’s assumed that it isn’t going to be usable forever.
Once you stop using the car entirely (for whatever reason), it isn’t going to have any value for you. The tax agency and/or accounting system lets you devalue the car over the expected lifespan of the car because you paid $ however much and it’s going to be worth $0 eventually.
For most people, depreciating your car isn’t going to make any difference because you can’t save on your taxes and you really don’t need to keep track of the asset value of your car. You certainly can depreciate it as you calculate your entire net worth, but it isn’t going to do much for you other than give you a more accurate idea of how much wealth you actually have. If you’re a business that’s paying taxes on business income, you can write off expenses and losses and that depreciation is part of those expenses and losses (as long as you bought the car for the business to use – you wouldn’t write off a vehicle that’s entirely for personal use, would you?)
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