I feel this a bit. I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee which I loved but decided to have engine problems which apparently is not uncommon. After months of attempted repairs the only option left was a replacement engine that cost more than the value of the car. I considered it but decided against on the advice of a trusted mechanic who says the Jeep replacement engines are problematic and I'd just be inviting more repair cost. Based on how things had gone, I imagined this is correct.
I wanted to cheap, small, 2wd pickup to toss rocks and woodchips and the like into for around the town chores which I seem to do a lot of. Does not exist, somewhere along the line everyone decided a pickup truck is some sort of luxury vehicle with all kinds of bells and whistles. While base model trucks are affordable, I cannot find one anywhere, only high-level trims are available. And a used truck with 100k miles is still outrageously expensive and I have shell shock from the Jeep engine blowing up at that milage.
I really wish I could have my old Toyota light truck from the mid 90s again. It was perfect for those light run around town jobs. Who knew that they would be impossible to find 30 years later.
> "When you do the math on what that means to a median household, it is basically pricing the median completely out of the new vehicle market"
Some years ago, 'above median' didn't count as 'rich'. There were 'the masses' maybe like 90% then a bourgeoisie maybe the next ones above that, then less than 1% aristocracy and nobles. Also social class wasn't determined solely by net worth or income. Maybe we will go back to that kind of situation where the median will be considered squarely in 'the masses' class and nowhere near 'rich'.
I dunno. Ford saw the automobile as being revolutionary only if the person who makes the automobile is able to afford the automobile. (Funny, nobody applies this one to child care.)
>Maybe we will go back to that kind of situation where the median will be considered squarely in 'the masses' class and nowhere near 'rich'.
We're already there. American society has stratified into three groups over the last 20 years. There's the 99th percentile elite who have hoarded over half of all overall wealth, the 90th percentile bourgeois (tech workers, lawyers, doctors, etc.) that are able to maintain a modicum of security and prosperity through real wage growth, and then the masses below who are desperately working themselves to death for near starvation wages to service the above two classes, with zero chance of economic mobility.
Safety is a big factor here. The basic trim for all entry level models includes driving aids such as proximity sensors, blind spot warning, backup camera, pre-collision warning. The changes required to integrate those features into the car are diverse and influence design. The net result is that it's not economically feasible to offer them as optional components on higher trims and the base price of all models goes up as a result.
Meh. I feel like that's a scapegoat that they like to use. Honda packed all that into the Fit (Honda Sensing), and it wasn't a $50,000 car. It was reasonably priced, and an excellent, economical car, with a top safety rating. It's literally the exact same tech used in their top end cars.
But what they did was, they killed the Fit in the US. So now the cheapest Honda car you can get is the Civic. Which isn't the small car it used to be.
I mean also, how much does this tech cost really? A backup camera? You really gonna claim that cars are unaffordable because of a $20 LCD and $10 camera installed into the bumper?
Pre-collision warnings, blind spot monitoring, it's all 20 year old tech now. And it comes in everything.
Safety is also the driving factor in vehicle size. We are in an arms race of constantly increasing vehicle complexity and mass. The safest vehicle to be in any two-vehicle crash is almost always the bigger one. With mass comes cost.
The irony is that vehicles are now ridiculously safe in comparison to decades past. Regulators who for years improved safety by leaps and bounds (seat belts, crumple zones, anti-lock breaks etc) are now forced to playing at the margins. Every incremental improvement now comes at greater and greater complexity/mass/cost. Rear view and side mirrors are going away soon, to be replaced by backup cameras. Also are coming anti-drunk features. There is serious talk about interlock breathalyzers being built into all steering wheels. This is going to get much worse.
For those who cannot afford a car but still need to travel the distances, there is always motorcycles. New two-wheeled vehicles are still cheap.
This may not be the worst thing honestly, from an environmental perspective. The cars themselves have much longer usable lives now so it's for the best that cars move down to new users instead of needing to build more and more.
The downsides, however, is that while the car part of the car is more durable and long-lasting than ever, the software/computer parts of the car are hamstrung by terrible decisions that are sure to age very poorly. This will only get worse when GM decides they want to turn the infotainment screen into a data-harvesting cash cow.
Also, this will slow down the transition to EVs. And it ends up saturating the used car market with cars designed with the tastes of show-boating new-car buyers in mind. This screws over people who just want a humble, reliable, practical vehicle instead of an overspecced, oversized, brodozer.
Discouraging car use through high prices could be a great thing. But cities have been designed to favor car convenience so much, at the expense of everything else (walking, cycling, mass transit), that people are essentially forced to buy a car in order to work, shop, and survive. We discuss these things on Reddit/FuckCars.
More expensive cars are better for the environment if people start driving less or stop driving. But it's worse for the environment if people hold on to older cars, because they are less fuel efficient than newer models and release more fine particles in the air.
But you are forgetting that people aren't stuck with this system and could choose to revolt against it. Life is getting significantly harder for people and giving some future politician a convenient tools of a scape goat 'green leftists are taking away your cars' when taking away the car means taking away work, having to choose between having a home somewhere affordable and driving to a job to either giving up the job or giving up the housing could ultimately result in a long term more undesirable environmental result from people lashing out against being put into losing situations. So many people ASSUME the status quo will hold despite everything going on. You get Trump types all the time, but if things are good enough they don't normally catch on with people.
The average EV price is not yet less than the average internal combustion vehicle price, but it's getting close. TCO for the average EV is almost certainly less than TCO for the average ICE vehicle.
A correction from an inflated peak all across 2022 when chip shortages starved supply and gas prices surged EV demand. Production for many of the highly sought-after models is only now starting to catch up.
Inflation has gone up in no small part due to cars. They’re one of the biggest factors and people who aren’t buying them or driving heavily have seen far lower rates of inflation.
Has anyone looked into knock on effects from the Obama era cash for clunkers that reduced the used car supply by 677,081 cars? I always thought that was going to impact affordability. It removed lower cost vehicles AND their future cannibalization for parts to keep other low cost vehicles on the road.
The other change I wonder is just the longevity of cars (which could counteract impact from cash for clunkers). My father used to buy a new car every 3-4 years in the 90s because cars sucked. Cars are more expensive now, but last much longer. My 7 year old car is as good as new still, my dad kept his last car 10 years.
Is a product that lasts triple the amount of time for less than triple the old price actually more expensive? No, but it IS now contradictingly unaffordable. It becomes the rich people and shoes trope. Poor people can only afford cheap shoes that wear out more often. When I could afford nice italian boots that lasted longer and were amazingly more comfortable I actually spent less on shoes, but I had to be able to shell out $500 for boots. Now I can only afford $40 for junk. Heck I have shirts from Nordstroms from 10 years ago that I still get complimented on but can't replace and am forced to slowly replace with cheap garbage shirts than wear out in a year because I'm broke and am sad to see myself fall into that trap knowing I am throwing away money to the benefit of looking worse for more $$$ spent over time.
All that said having moved down about 10 social economic groups the people I know have 2 daily struggles that keep them in constant anxiety. Housing and keeping their cars running. The system is not going to hold if this keeps up. People can't live in this constant stress and anxiety with no hope and are going to look to some way out. In the past in other countries that's been far left or far right political charlatans. Yet the people up high still expect the status quo to hold and are doing nothing to make things better.
I don't think the people & shoes trope necessarily applies. You can buy something like a Kia Forte for under $20K and I bet it's more reliable than a $50K BMW.
EVs are the way to go right now. Between the "fleet" loophole for federal credits, state credits, free charging for 2-3 years in some cases, discounted charging at night, manufacturers trying to get rid of the EVs that didn't succeed, no sales tax in some states. It's probably 50% cheaper than an ICE car
can you please link an ev that's cheaper than a 26k total cost of ownership over a 10y period(excluding registration) I bought a midsized sedan in 2019, 10y warranty, 17k out the door. I tried to justify the cost of an ev, the cheapest I could find was 32k after credits.
...because of (a) car-price inflation kick-started by pandemic-era supply shocks, and (b) rising interest rates meant to drive down the rate of price inflation.
In short, both cars themselves and car-financing are more expensive.
_But_ I also see some car ads with weirdly/implausibly low interest rates. My understanding was that in these cases the base price is artificially higher to subsidize below-market financing rates -- and in those cases even if you don't need the financing, you may be better off taking it. But the point ends up being that these are not independent phenomena; MSRP prices are set with financing in mind.
“Supply shocks” make it sound like something that could not be anticipated, rather than something that was caused by active incompetence from auto manufacturers at the start of the pandemic.
We make like 3-3.5x household median for our city and I can't imagine buying a new car. The prices are batshit crazy. In the late '00s budget cars existed at like $9k new and $20k would get you a pretty damn good vehicle. Now that barely gets you a pretty damn good seven-year-old, used vehicle.
To be fair, you quoted a couple that traded in a Suburban for a Nissan Frontier. The former is one of the biggest mass produced vehicles you can buy, the Frontier is large but considerably smaller and wouldn’t be out of place on European roads (truck wise).
And the first part of the quote describes a small SUV for another couple. Everyone’s definition of “small SUV” will vary, but I’m not sure many would infer tank.
Of course, your definition of tank could be very different to mine.
There’s a huge backlog right now. An increase in sales tracks an increase in supply. The situation is changing rapidly, anecdotally. My local Toyota deal dropped their dealer markup from $10k to $5k recently
This article is kinda missing it. New vehicles are have always been a luxury for people with money to waste. Unless you get some crazy deal and financing they're never a good financial decision.
Well that used to be true, the actual painful thing going on with the car market right now is that in some ridiculous twist of events is that used costs more than new for a lot of vehicles. So yes new cars are more expensive, but used cars are a lot more expensive which hollows out the market that serves the average car buyer.
Another blow against the "cars = freedom" mantra we have so wrongly pursued for 50+ years. Now that prices are up and highway maintenance costs are continuing to increase you have no alternative but to open your wallet for the automakers and state departments of roads and highways bureaucrats because guess what, they've legislated your density and your sidewalks and bike lanes away and stopped you from taking the train.
When I ran the numbers for "am I, high-paid for my city and only at a medium-distance from the city center by local commuter standards, benefitting from the existence of cars?" over a decade ago, I was at break-even (except that I'd be healthier in a bike-and-walking-centric version of my city). Now? Haha. Hahaha. If I still had to commute, the numbers would surely be way into the "cars are a net-cost" side. And I've got a far better situation for that than most do....
If you're purchasing a new vehicle for over $40k, you're getting scammed IMO. There's a lot of great electric and hybrid vehicles with good reliability history.
But if you want to look like a _____ in a lifted dodge ram, well, we'll be happy to give you plenty of room on the road to roll your coal.
Do they actually exist on dealer lots now? For a while there, big cars and pickups were the only ones available. And dealerships were marking up electric cars so high that manufacturers got mad and started threatening them. https://www.motor1.com/news/569524/hyundai-genesis-avoid-dea...
I'm speaking out of ignorance here, since I have no idea what role a microchip plays in modern vehicles, but obviously it's geared towards software components.
Assuming that's true, then this whole chip shortage would have been a great time for someone to bring a software-less, low-tech vehicle to the market. I've personally been wanting that as our last vehicle completely shit the bed when the digital transmission encountered an error. Plus I hate touch screens in cars.
They aren't really what HN people would consider serious microchips. They certainly aren't CPUs. They are lots of basic little chips doing things like regulating an engine parameter or detecting brake pedal forces. One way forwards in reducing the overall demand for chips, the square-inches of silicon needed in a car, is to abandon the approach of scattering little chips all over the vehicle. Instead they could route all the wiring into a centralized control with a powerful CPU running effectively an OS for the entire vehicle. One chip to rule them all. But that just isn't how cars have evolved. History has incrementally made every system componentized and independent.
Even a "low-tech" car is still very complicated to build. Someone who is good enough to make a very good old style car (like Honda or Toyota), isn't financially incentivized to do so anymore. Such a car would not have any features to justify its brand new price over a used one. And the cost to reserve an entire factory line for this model is just too expensive and probably sale won't recover the cost of doing so.
Even if there had been demand for a car without basic features people got used to in the past 20 years or so (central locks, power windows, rain-sensing wipers etc.) it would not work because of the emission requirements. The engines that meet the requirements all run software in order to work. Ditto for the required safety features: backup cameras, anti-lock brakes, ESC etc.
It's generally not possible to meet emissions guidelines without computer control of the engine. Fuel economy also suffers. It's all a tightwire balancing act and the mechanical carburetors of the past are simply too crude to get the job done.
The older trains in NL have a computer that reads and displays all kinds of things but it controls nothing. If it doesn't work the train functions just fine.
Yeah, Kia Forte is still sub $20k. That’s a perfectly good car that seats four adults and does 40 MPG (kinda meh in Europe but okay). If you need more car than that for driving to work and buying groceries on the way home, that’s your problem, and I have zero sympathy for you.
> Back in 2017, if you wanted a car that cost less than $20,000, you had 11 options. Fast forward to March of 2023, and that list had been narrowed to only two.
That’s definitely a big part, but the other major reasons are:
1. Companies are focusing on selling higher profit margin vehicles (more expensive models vs high volume budget models)
2. Companies are focusing on SUVs and trucks since bigger cars are in demand.
3. To a small extent, the focus on inherently more expensive EV models
tfandango|2 years ago
I wanted to cheap, small, 2wd pickup to toss rocks and woodchips and the like into for around the town chores which I seem to do a lot of. Does not exist, somewhere along the line everyone decided a pickup truck is some sort of luxury vehicle with all kinds of bells and whistles. While base model trucks are affordable, I cannot find one anywhere, only high-level trims are available. And a used truck with 100k miles is still outrageously expensive and I have shell shock from the Jeep engine blowing up at that milage.
upon_drumhead|2 years ago
ftxbro|2 years ago
Some years ago, 'above median' didn't count as 'rich'. There were 'the masses' maybe like 90% then a bourgeoisie maybe the next ones above that, then less than 1% aristocracy and nobles. Also social class wasn't determined solely by net worth or income. Maybe we will go back to that kind of situation where the median will be considered squarely in 'the masses' class and nowhere near 'rich'.
PaulHoule|2 years ago
ramesh31|2 years ago
We're already there. American society has stratified into three groups over the last 20 years. There's the 99th percentile elite who have hoarded over half of all overall wealth, the 90th percentile bourgeois (tech workers, lawyers, doctors, etc.) that are able to maintain a modicum of security and prosperity through real wage growth, and then the masses below who are desperately working themselves to death for near starvation wages to service the above two classes, with zero chance of economic mobility.
TradingPlaces|2 years ago
glitchc|2 years ago
olyjohn|2 years ago
But what they did was, they killed the Fit in the US. So now the cheapest Honda car you can get is the Civic. Which isn't the small car it used to be.
I mean also, how much does this tech cost really? A backup camera? You really gonna claim that cars are unaffordable because of a $20 LCD and $10 camera installed into the bumper?
Pre-collision warnings, blind spot monitoring, it's all 20 year old tech now. And it comes in everything.
sandworm101|2 years ago
The irony is that vehicles are now ridiculously safe in comparison to decades past. Regulators who for years improved safety by leaps and bounds (seat belts, crumple zones, anti-lock breaks etc) are now forced to playing at the margins. Every incremental improvement now comes at greater and greater complexity/mass/cost. Rear view and side mirrors are going away soon, to be replaced by backup cameras. Also are coming anti-drunk features. There is serious talk about interlock breathalyzers being built into all steering wheels. This is going to get much worse.
For those who cannot afford a car but still need to travel the distances, there is always motorcycles. New two-wheeled vehicles are still cheap.
naravara|2 years ago
The downsides, however, is that while the car part of the car is more durable and long-lasting than ever, the software/computer parts of the car are hamstrung by terrible decisions that are sure to age very poorly. This will only get worse when GM decides they want to turn the infotainment screen into a data-harvesting cash cow.
Also, this will slow down the transition to EVs. And it ends up saturating the used car market with cars designed with the tastes of show-boating new-car buyers in mind. This screws over people who just want a humble, reliable, practical vehicle instead of an overspecced, oversized, brodozer.
nayuki|2 years ago
GalenErso|2 years ago
jonathankoren|2 years ago
From a purely carbon perspective, new cars are always cleaner than old cars. This is simply due to less wear and tear, and technology improvements.
ROTMetro|2 years ago
bryanlarsen|2 years ago
https://insideevs.com/news/666533/average-ev-transaction-pri...
The average EV price is not yet less than the average internal combustion vehicle price, but it's getting close. TCO for the average EV is almost certainly less than TCO for the average ICE vehicle.
BHSPitMonkey|2 years ago
dgoodell|2 years ago
$21k in Jan 2017 is nearly $26k Jan 2023. There seems to be plenty of new cars that cost that amount.
acdha|2 years ago
olyjohn|2 years ago
julienfr112|2 years ago
ROTMetro|2 years ago
The other change I wonder is just the longevity of cars (which could counteract impact from cash for clunkers). My father used to buy a new car every 3-4 years in the 90s because cars sucked. Cars are more expensive now, but last much longer. My 7 year old car is as good as new still, my dad kept his last car 10 years.
Is a product that lasts triple the amount of time for less than triple the old price actually more expensive? No, but it IS now contradictingly unaffordable. It becomes the rich people and shoes trope. Poor people can only afford cheap shoes that wear out more often. When I could afford nice italian boots that lasted longer and were amazingly more comfortable I actually spent less on shoes, but I had to be able to shell out $500 for boots. Now I can only afford $40 for junk. Heck I have shirts from Nordstroms from 10 years ago that I still get complimented on but can't replace and am forced to slowly replace with cheap garbage shirts than wear out in a year because I'm broke and am sad to see myself fall into that trap knowing I am throwing away money to the benefit of looking worse for more $$$ spent over time.
All that said having moved down about 10 social economic groups the people I know have 2 daily struggles that keep them in constant anxiety. Housing and keeping their cars running. The system is not going to hold if this keeps up. People can't live in this constant stress and anxiety with no hope and are going to look to some way out. In the past in other countries that's been far left or far right political charlatans. Yet the people up high still expect the status quo to hold and are doing nothing to make things better.
bryanlarsen|2 years ago
shmatt|2 years ago
Beached|2 years ago
cs702|2 years ago
In short, both cars themselves and car-financing are more expensive.
abeppu|2 years ago
E.g. https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/advice/interest-free-car...
jen20|2 years ago
yamtaddle|2 years ago
Toutouxc|2 years ago
> Ramirez, 33, and his wife Angelica Castro-Calle really want a new, small SUV with a little space for camping and paddleboarding gear
> Johnny Loredo and his wife paid $38,000 for a new Nissan Frontier truck
> If they hadn’t had a used Suburban to trade in
Yeaah. That could be the issue. People aren’t looking to buy cars anymore, but tanks.
whycombagator|2 years ago
And the first part of the quote describes a small SUV for another couple. Everyone’s definition of “small SUV” will vary, but I’m not sure many would infer tank.
Of course, your definition of tank could be very different to mine.
lapcat|2 years ago
skybrian|2 years ago
[1] https://economics.td.com/us-vehicle-sales [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ALTSALES
jandrese|2 years ago
TechBro8615|2 years ago
georgeburdell|2 years ago
Spivak|2 years ago
Well that used to be true, the actual painful thing going on with the car market right now is that in some ridiculous twist of events is that used costs more than new for a lot of vehicles. So yes new cars are more expensive, but used cars are a lot more expensive which hollows out the market that serves the average car buyer.
ericmay|2 years ago
yamtaddle|2 years ago
egman_ekki|2 years ago
Kia Rio starting at $32k, with median salary 15% lower than the US.
falcolas|2 years ago
But if you want to look like a _____ in a lifted dodge ram, well, we'll be happy to give you plenty of room on the road to roll your coal.
sp332|2 years ago
a_subsystem|2 years ago
notadev|2 years ago
skrtskrt|2 years ago
Cars as a whole are massively much more reliable for a lot longer than they used to, making used cars way more viable for most people.
Even the traditionally less-reliable brands are not exploding at 70k miles like they did 15 or 20 years ago.
danielvaughn|2 years ago
Assuming that's true, then this whole chip shortage would have been a great time for someone to bring a software-less, low-tech vehicle to the market. I've personally been wanting that as our last vehicle completely shit the bed when the digital transmission encountered an error. Plus I hate touch screens in cars.
sandworm101|2 years ago
galaxytachyon|2 years ago
pandaman|2 years ago
jandrese|2 years ago
6510|2 years ago
A linux car seems a fun twist.
driverdan|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
tb_technical|2 years ago
SkipperCat|2 years ago
2023 Nissan Versa - $17,366 2023 Kia Rio - $18,371 2023 Mitsubishi Mirage - $17,140
Just sayin....
Toutouxc|2 years ago
gaudat|2 years ago
stronglikedan|2 years ago
SketchySeaBeast|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
Proven|2 years ago
[deleted]
splitstud|2 years ago
[deleted]
helen___keller|2 years ago
The story here is just “inflation happened”
prng2021|2 years ago
ElevenLathe|2 years ago