Driving a Car in Retirement Will Soon Be a Thing of the Past by Scott Stolz, CFP, RICP (week 64)

 

Dr. Joseph Coughlin, the founder and director of the MIT Age Lab, recently published an article in ReThinking65.com, entitled “The Retirement Number You Probably Haven’t Calculated For Your Client”, (The Retirement Number You Probably Haven't Calculated for Your Client, Financial Planning Articles for Financial Advisors & Wealth Managers).  I’m a big believer in putting in strategies to minimize the financial risks in retirement, hence why I’ve named this blog “retirement moats”.  Therefore, I read Dr. Joe’s article with great interest.  Could there be a risk I hadn’t considered in my own retirement plan? 

The premise of the article is that eventually, most retirees will no longer be able to drive.  That means there is likely to be a new expense anytime they want to go somewhere.  As Dr. Joe put it, “retirement planning prices the car, it doesn’t price the driver.”.  If you don’t consider the additional expense of paying someone to take you to the store, the doctor’s office or to dinner, there could eventually be a substantial hole in your retirement budget.

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I’m a big fan of Dr. Joe.  I’ve been following his writings for years and have had the pleasure of hearing him speak on several occasions.  But this one I think he has wrong.  Actually, just a week ago I would have given his advice serious consideration.  But then we had dinner with my daughter and son-in-law.  My son-in-law had to take some business meetings for his father while his father was out of town.  He decided to borrow his dad’s Tesla for these meetings.  We elected to use the Tesla to drive us to dinner.  And I mean that literally.  This particular Tesla has the self-driving feature; therefore, it actually did drive us to dinner.  We simply relaxed and enjoyed the ride.  Since this was my first time in a self-driving car, I was curious to see how the car would perform.  Its first real test was when we came to a roundabout with heavy traffic.  This is often a situation that stresses mere mortals.  Not the Tesla.  It waited patiently for the perfect opening and flawlessly performed.  We made the 15 minute drive to the restaurant in Friday evening traffic without incident.  The ride home was also completed without incident. In fact, given that everyone had a few glasses of wine at dinner, letting the Tesla drive home was probably actually the safest option.

The bottom line is that I came away convinced that long before I get too old to drive, I will have already given this task to whatever vehicle I have at the time.  In fact, I now firmly believe that my grandchildren will never drive.  Driving a car will be as foreign of a concept to them as riding a horse and buggy is to us.  That does not mean that Dr. Joe’s advice about budgeting to have someone drive you around is irrelevant.  If you are in your late 70’s or older, this could be a very real financial risk.  But for anyone younger than that, technology will make this risk obsolete in the not-too-distant future. 

Comments

  1. Ted HallSeptember 24, 2026 at 10:09 AM

    Well, thankfully with my advanced age I will likely not have to worry about this as I will never be comfortable in a self driving car. I need the security and comfort of my hands on the wheel.

    ReplyDelete

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