You guys get cars for under six figures? Haha nice, cries in Singapore
The $25k car is going extinct?
191–200 of 1001 posts
Re: The $25k car is going extinct?
#192It's pretty simple (in the US, can't speak for elsewhere). There are 2 big factors at play: 1. Margins. Manufacturers make huge margins on expensive vehicles and very slim margins on cheap vehicles. The numbers differ, but I think even in the lead up to the 2008 crisis automakers had to sell 5-10 "econobox" cars to make the profit they made on one luxury car, SUV, or truck. 2. Normalization of debt. For many American…
The solution to number one is more competition: a new company willing to take smaller margins to gain market share.
Economies of scale says before you can build a cheap car you must first be a large company
Re: The $25k car is going extinct?
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sort of. In a lot of areas, the cost of the house has skyrocketed in the last few decades. One factor is that you can’t buy an empty lot and then build a 20 year old $250k house on it in most markets. If you want to build a house, that house will be new (obviously — relocating an old house is a real pain), and the costs of construction are silly. This effect inflates the value of old houses in a lot of markets. Of co…
> relocating an old house is a real pain Has relocating an old house even been done? (Assuming the house wasn't built to be movable.)
Somewhat recently in SF. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/23/san-francisc...
Re: The $25k car is going extinct?
#194Nobody 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.
proud owner of a financed 2024 manual nissan versa here :) but yeah the dealership made almost no money and I put down a deposit when it was a couple months from coming in at a location far from where I live. it's a $20k car though.
There was a finance charge on your loan that was probably around $1k so that's 5% the dealer made right there instantly for no work
Re: The $25k car is going extinct?
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd never seen the word "subvention" before. Today I learned it's another way to say "subsidy".
It's a europeanism. In both French and German (and probably other EU languages) the word for "subsidy" is something like "subvention" so native speakers of these language often reach for an unnatural word in English. Btw other examples include "actually" which is used to mean "currently", and "eventually" which is used to mean "maybe". Personally I'm torn whether to consider this incorrect use of the language as it i…
oh, and to add to your vocabulary - the word pathetic, especially around Elbonia, can be used with the intention of saying something is full of "pathos".
Re: The $25k car is going extinct?
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have never seen the bed of a Cybertruck. Not a dig at the vehicle; that's a different thing. Rather, I notice that this truck doesn't seem to spend much time as a, ya know, truck. With other trucks it's less obvious because they don't have a built in bed cover. I suspect many of them also spent very little time trucking, at least here in this suburb. Perhaps it's different in more agricultural areas.
I'm in an agricultural area, have been in and around agriculture and mining for many decades, I can't see anyone buying a cybertruck for any practical reason. I've seen the offroad performance videos, the cybertruck isn't anything to write home about wrt to either ground clearance or scrabble factor (broken road hill climbing, etc). Other cheaper vehicles perform as well or better. The tray area is a nightmare, three…
I live in suburbs between San Jose and. San Francisco and see a few Cybertrucks in single family home driveways and apartment parking lots - it feels more like a status symbol of some kind, see a lot more of other pickup trucks, though more common in less affluent areas.
Re: The $25k car is going extinct?
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Boston. DC. Chicago. I’ve heard Philly and SF as well, but have never been.
Bay Area (including SF) public transportation is generally terrible, definitely not at all a great option for people who can’t even live in SF but have to commute to SF because of how expensive it is.
San Francisco is in the top 10 cities in the US for public transit usage. You can see the stats here: https://www.sf.gov/data--vision-zero-benchmarking-commute-me...
If you are forced to commute into SF for your job, then make living close to BART a top priority. (Many years ago, I met many people who suffered through that daily commute, but refused to make living near BART a priority. It was dumb to watch.) BART is a miracle train system (hybrid commuter rail/metro/subway), even if the coverage isn't great.
Re: The $25k car is going extinct?
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sort of. In a lot of areas, the cost of the house has skyrocketed in the last few decades. One factor is that you can’t buy an empty lot and then build a 20 year old $250k house on it in most markets. If you want to build a house, that house will be new (obviously — relocating an old house is a real pain), and the costs of construction are silly. This effect inflates the value of old houses in a lot of markets. Of co…
> relocating an old house is a real pain Has relocating an old house even been done? (Assuming the house wasn't built to be movable.)
Yeah, it's a thing for a certain type of historic building.
See https://patch.com/massachusetts/lexington/historic-house-mov... as an example
Re: The $25k car is going extinct?
#199I don't know why inflation is dismissed so quickly. The article lists the industry average price increase as 29.2% and the inflation value I got out of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics calculator[1] was 26.2%. So sure, "this isn’t just a case of inflation affecting the entire vehicle market" [emphasis mine], but it is mostly that.
Re: The $25k car is going extinct?
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sort of. In a lot of areas, the cost of the house has skyrocketed in the last few decades. One factor is that you can’t buy an empty lot and then build a 20 year old $250k house on it in most markets. If you want to build a house, that house will be new (obviously — relocating an old house is a real pain), and the costs of construction are silly. This effect inflates the value of old houses in a lot of markets. Of co…
> relocating an old house is a real pain Has relocating an old house even been done? (Assuming the house wasn't built to be movable.)
It is done, albeit rarely due to how expensive and complex an operation it is. My friend's mother moved her house a few kilometers across some farmland. It was a rather large 2 story tall house, with a basement. It had to be moved to a plot that had a similar foundation and basement prepared for it.