The $25k car is going extinct? • Hacker News Board

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#231

Post by qznc » Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 5:19 AM UTC

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #133

snovymgodym wrote: post #7

It'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…

My reptilian-brain logic prevents me from even considering getting a loan for car. Houses increase in value, therefore it makes a certain amount of sense to get a loan / mortgage for the purchase of a house (but mainly because no-one - in the world in which I live - can afford to buy one cash). Cars decrease in value, very quickly. Getting a loan for a car is throwing more money away than buying a car in the first pl…

Houses do not increase in value. Land property does (usually). Houses decrease.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#232

Post by namibj » Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 5:20 AM UTC

snuxoll wrote: post #118

QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s a shame that they’re spending so much of their capital on manufacturer side customizability. An electric vehicle is a firmware update away from being a stick welder already; make the truck one way and ship it with a pair of jumper cables, a box of 6011, and a pallet of tube steel.

Outside of having what amounts to a couple of shells and removable seats that can be mounted to the box (and a removable rear panel from the cab to join them to create a single 'interior' when using them), the majority of their BTO options are really basic module swaps where most of the complexity comes from managing inventory of the various SKUs than anything else. As somebody with a '99 Ford Ranger, the Slate is in…

Huh? I thought the Slate body panels are fiber reinforced Polypropylene, basically a cheaper somewhat less intense performance sibling of that ultra tough fiber reinforced nylon that power tools are made of since about that battery tool manufacturer war really took off?

Yeah, there's a frame underneath, but the panel itself shouldn't even really care about tanking a shopping card, it's main weakness is how soft the PP is to sharp objects...

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#233

Post by dyauspitr » Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 5:21 AM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #129

aorloff wrote: post #74

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

It depends. It doesn’t make sense to not get a car you can afford for 0% interest. I could have outright paid for my current vehicle but over the 3 years at 0% interest I earn 6% to make a few thousand over the lifetime of the loan.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#234

Post by speeder » Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 5:24 AM UTC

Last time I bought a car, my family kept pushing me to buy new, avoid used.

All new cars were crap and expensive. People wanted me to buy a Hyundai HB20 with a crappy engine that couldn't climb the hill where my house was located.

I ended buying a used Mitsubishi Lancer GT, the thing had same engine as Evo (minus the turbo), leather seats, roof window, rear camera and so on. For half of the price of the HB20.

Sadly Mitsubishi discontinued those and went on to join the SUVmania where your cheapest car is a big as a SUV externally, but that has cramped interior and none of SUV features.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#235

Post by bluefirebrand » Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 5:25 AM UTC

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #84

JKCalhoun wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the cost of a car is a huge drag on the upward mobility on the lower income earners in the U.S.

Because they are buying new and financing it

Well, the used car market has also been decimated

Cash For Clunkers took a ton of used vehicles off the market

Stricter environmental standards have also taken otherwise working cars off the market, by preventing used dealerships from selling them in general, and making it more difficult/more expensive to insure them

The days of buying a used car for 2 grand are long gone

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#236

Post by ddeck » Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 5:26 AM UTC

Sweepi wrote: post #211

zeroq wrote: post #124

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…

>EU offers up to 10k EUR subvention for electric cars and with that in mind you can get something like BYD Dolphin for slighly less than 20k EUR. "The EU" does not offer subsidies for any car, some member states do (And I have never heard of a subsidy of 10k per car). On the contrary, Chinese cars are strongly tariffed by the EU. Please correct me if I'm wrong, however, until someone provides a link, I label this pos…

Chinese EVs are certainly strongly tariffed. The below Reuters article highlights how BYD are apparently shifting to plug-in hybrid sales to avoid the 27% tariff the EU imposes on its pure battery electric vehicles (plug-in hybrids attract a reduced 10% tariff).

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chines...

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#237

Post by bluefirebrand » Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 5:28 AM UTC

BobaFloutist wrote: post #208

JKCalhoun wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New car prices affect used car prices. I've been in the market for a used car for my daughter, and the prices on used are crazy as well.

I mean what's a 10-year-old Prius in passable condition cost? It can't be that bad, surely?

https://www.edmunds.com/toyota/prius/2015/

10 grand it seems? That's pretty rough, especially with that mileage

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#238

Post by BLKNSLVR » Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 5:31 AM UTC

qznc wrote: post #231

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reptilian-brain logic prevents me from even considering getting a loan for car. Houses increase in value, therefore it makes a certain amount of sense to get a loan / mortgage for the purchase of a house (but mainly because no-one - in the world in which I live - can afford to buy one cash). Cars decrease in value, very quickly. Getting a loan for a car is throwing more money away than buying a car in the first pl…

Houses do not increase in value. Land property does (usually). Houses decrease.

The best kind of correct.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#239

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 5:31 AM UTC

zeroq wrote: post #195

ml_basics wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

[deleted]

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#240

Post by dingaling » Mon, Jun 30, 2025, 5:36 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #199

I 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. [1] - https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

Retail inflation is based on the prices of goods, including new cars.

So it's pointless to compare car prices to inflation because they are part of the basis of the measure. Hence why they track closely.