How Carconomics turns prices into decisions.

raw quote grid
  → normalize the same trip dimensions
  → compare like with like
  → expose the strongest signal
  → link back to the bookable listing

Rule: descriptive evidence stays separate from prediction. A current price curve says what is listed now; a history signal says how identical trips changed. Neither is certainty about tomorrow.

pickup offsets = 7 through 27
trip lengths   = 1 day + 3 days + 7 days
duration value = median daily price across pickup offsets
basket value   = mean of the three duration medians
score          = five fixed axes, 10 points each
shown score    = score × 2, out of 100

Independence rule: ratings, completed trips, All-Star badges, reviews, host identity, distance, claims, sponsorship, advertising, clicks, and commissions never enter Rental Value or organic order. The representative three-day quote is an example nearest the listing’s three-day median; it is not the score’s only input.

candidate_set = selected market
price_value   = actual price vs comparable price
distance      = approximate public-centroid miles
radius        = off, 5, 10, 25, or 50 miles
sort          = nearest city first
user_choice   = whether the savings justify the travel

Today: enter a ZIP code, city, or address to resolve a public ZIP/city reference point, optionally keep only listings within 5, 10, 25, or 50 straight-line miles, and sort nearest first. A listing without a known public city centroid cannot pass an active radius. The address itself is not saved or placed in the URL, and the result is deliberately approximate—not a route or a host’s precise location. Cards keep showing airport distance when no personal starting point is active.

matched_quotes =
  selected markets
  × every pickup date in the stored window
  × every supported duration
  × every eligible car

response = ranked page + match count + explainable picks

Performance contract: large searches remain paginated and deterministic, and a failed update does not replace the last verified result set.

One support rule: Stats defaults to a 3-day rental. A missing or incomplete cohort, or one without both listing and fresh-listing counts, is unavailable. Fewer than 10 listings or less than 95% fresh listings is also unavailable; 10–29 listings is thin; 30 or more is supported. Quote-row counts never substitute for listing counts. The cheapest-date hero further requires at least 80% of that duration’s maximum cell support.

How to read the panels: A quote window is one listing × one pickup date × one trip length. Medians use standard Type-7 quantiles, and one listing gets one cohort vote regardless of quote density. Heatmap colors are normalized separately within each trip-length row, so color intensity cannot be compared across rows. Every panel states what the result tells you and what it cannot prove. “After controls” is a model association, not proof of causation.

Collecting states are evidence: A history panel stays in a collecting or unavailable state until its exact completeness, freshness, support, and day-count gates pass. Carconomics does not fill gaps, substitute a different duration, or fall back to old quote-weighted rows merely to draw a chart.

peer identity = same market + make + model + pickup + duration
first choice  = model year ±2
supported    = 30 or more fresh peers
thin         = 10–29 fresh peers
unavailable  = fewer than 10 fresh peers

Written-review boundary: GET /api/reputation returns a permission-required written-review state. Carconomics does not collect review bodies, infer sentiment, test whether text agrees with a star score, or turn listing aggregates into a host-wide quality score without written source permission.

gas energy = miles / EPA combined MPG × matching EIA $/gallon
BEV energy = miles × EPA kWh/100 miles / 100 × $/kWh
scenario   = observed three-day rental total + estimated energy
gap        = BEV minus gasoline

Failure behavior: missing, stale, future, malformed, or unavailable source evidence produces collecting or unavailable output. The independently scheduled source refresh is best-effort and cannot fail, replace, or delay the verified rental-price publication.

• 01
  Not availability demand. A listing disappearing can mean many things. It is not called a booking without direct evidence.
• 02
  Not a causal experiment. Controlled price effects reduce obvious mix differences but do not prove causation.
• 03
  Not review-text analysis. Current quality signals use aggregate rating, completed listing trips, and All-Star status. Public pages expose some reviews, but automated/commercial collection stays off unless Turo grants written permission for that use.
• 04
  Not a prediction by default. A current lead-time curve compares different future trips today. Only repeated same-trip history measures repricing.
• 05
  Not permanent. Price and availability can change at any moment. The linked listing remains the final source.

⟲ HISTORY Luxury collection is currently paused — the group serves its last verified observation, labeled historical. It covers curated 2022-and-newer passenger vehicles from the makes and model families shown in the planner. Luxury is filtered by make where Tesla is filtered by model. Groups are never blended: every displayed price, comparison, and badge is computed within the selected group.

group_filter = Tesla models | Luxury makes
comparison   = within the selected group only
uncertainty  = disclose or omit; never imply precision

If additional vehicle attributes are added later, every public ranking will name its inputs and limitations. Uncertain attributes will not be presented as confident facts.