141–150 of 1001 posts
Add electrics with thousand lbs of batteries, and you've got today's 4000-6000 lb SUVs, all costing an arm and a leg.
One fact not mentioned in the article - Americans now owe $1.64 trillion in auto loans, and cars make up 9% of all consumer debt in the country. In fact we now owe more on cars than student loans. The average loan term is rising - almost 6 years now. 60-day delinquency on auto loans is at 6.6%, the highest ever recorded, and is as high as 9% in some states. So while car prices keep going up, people also keep going de…
Sure, status is a factor. But for people who do a lot of driving, having a nice car really benefits their quality of life. No one wants to spend hours every day in a miserable little penalty box.
welp, guess my corolla needs to last until I die. I spent about $9k usd (in australia though) on it second hand pre covid and I'm just gobsmacked at the prices of vehciles now even years post covid. I make good coin and I just can't see how non-"enthusiasts" can justify spending so much money on their vehicle. there are houses in my suburb with 3-4 of these expensive, new model cars out front.
If Australia is like the US, all those cars are leases or debt-financed
An interesting trend that I've heard from multiple dealership (friends and family) - the number of people being rejected for financing has dramatically increased in the past 12 months. There are some dealership areas now where a third of applicants are being turned down.
One fact not mentioned in the article - Americans now owe $1.64 trillion in auto loans, and cars make up 9% of all consumer debt in the country. In fact we now owe more on cars than student loans. The average loan term is rising - almost 6 years now. 60-day delinquency on auto loans is at 6.6%, the highest ever recorded, and is as high as 9% in some states. So while car prices keep going up, people also keep going de…
Sure, status is a factor. But for people who do a lot of driving, having a nice car really benefits their quality of life. No one wants to spend hours every day in a miserable little penalty box.
Last year we bought a car. While not being a petrol head I was still living in a lala land where you could buy a brand new car for 10k EUR. Nothing fancy, just "a car". Obviously it turned out to be not true. After some digging it turned out that in the last 10 years the price of cars went double. Literally double. Same car, like Fiat Panda, with the same engine and configuration, that ten years was worth one potato…
People like cars that can go 80-90 mph for hundreds and hundreds of miles while carrying 4 people. With crash protection. Add electrics with thousand lbs of batteries, and you've got today's 4000-6000 lb SUVs, all costing an arm and a leg.
Nobody else has said it so I guess I will. The reason the US car industry does not want a $25k car is that the financing opportunities are crap for a car of this low cost. In the same way that airlines exist to offer you a miles based credit card, the US car dealerships survive by offering you a loan for the car. Or perhaps, a car to go with your structured finance opportunity.
Buy the best used car you can afford for cash and forget all that dealership nonsense
Earlier quoted context omitted.
100%. And it doesn’t help that large cars as a cultural touchstone/status symbol really took off. Even if a $25k car existed most people wouldn’t buy it(even if they “should”).
The base Ford Maverick just edged over $25K for 2024. Now it's $26K. It's not a "real truck" but considerably larger than any econobox.
I was in the market looking for a used SUV for my wife to haul around our kids last year. Dealing with dealers who wouldn't budge even a few hundred off the inflated listing prices, the interest rates on financing and then the insane insurance costs was not pleasant. I have an old Subaru beater that I was also thinking about upgrading but after this whole fiasco I decided to spend some money to fix body and small mec…
Subaru's have an increasingly good reputation for long-term reliability. Stick with and love the beater. I find a certain liberation in not caring too much about risks of car park dents and "curb rash" and other surface-only non-mechanical auto-maladies.