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The $25k car is going extinct?

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Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#311

Post by nottorp »

Glawen wrote: post #24

Aka how to shoot yourself in the foot and hand over the market to Chinese manufacturer. In Europe, only Renault created a low cost brand (Dacia). Once chinese brands become commonplace everywhere, tradional carmakers will have a hard time taking back market share. In Europe they closed or are closing the last HCOL factories, killing any remaining brand loyalty.

> In Europe, only Renault created a low cost brand (Dacia).

Dacia did force other european auto makers to maintain at least one low cost ish model. Not an entire brand but still. Sometimes just for the eastern european market. Skoda Rapid comes to mind.

But even Dacia is succumbing to the auto manufacturer mindset. Every year the models get larger, more default features are added and the cars get more expensive.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#312

Post by leakycap »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #259
leakycap wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue you'll face is when you go to sell it – any noticeable hail damage means you are getting 1/2 the resale value if you can even find an interested buyer.

Ideally you should be driving the car until the wheels fall off anyways. Faffing about selling cars and buying newer ones is a waste of money.

> Faffing about selling cars and buying newer ones is a waste of money.

Depends. No reason to pour money into a depreciating asset that you trust your life with.

I saw an early 2000s small car get into a ~30mph collision recently and ... I wouldn't drive an early 2000s car after that. A lot of people do, and they probably should try to get something with more modern safety equipment.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#313

Post by yourusername »

troupo wrote: post #292
puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #261

You can still buy a new subcompact car (like a Renault Clio or Skoda Fabia) in Europe for under 20k EUR. The more interesting question is why these cars disappeared in the US. And while many of the factors discussed here are true for both EU and US (inflation, interest rates, manufacturer profit margins etc) I am surprised no one mentioned the 'SUV loophole' of US regulations that effectively boosted the SUVs (off-ro…

Small cars are disappearing in the EU as well. E.g. Audi will discontinue (or have already discontinued) their A1 model (and it was the perfect little car).

The smallest class like the Daihatsu Cuore are already gone. The small cars that are left are significantly larger than the former version that shared the same nameplate. For example the Yaris is a SUV now. Can't really blame the manufacturers. The EU requires so much equipment on cars that you can't really turn a profit on a $10k car (like the Aygo/C1/107 was ~10 years ago). So if your car is going to cost $20k because of all the stuff it has to have it might as well be a bit bigger.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#314

Post by nicholassmith »

troupo wrote: post #292
puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #261

You can still buy a new subcompact car (like a Renault Clio or Skoda Fabia) in Europe for under 20k EUR. The more interesting question is why these cars disappeared in the US. And while many of the factors discussed here are true for both EU and US (inflation, interest rates, manufacturer profit margins etc) I am surprised no one mentioned the 'SUV loophole' of US regulations that effectively boosted the SUVs (off-ro…

Small cars are disappearing in the EU as well. E.g. Audi will discontinue (or have already discontinued) their A1 model (and it was the perfect little car).

Renault at least are keeping the small car flame alive with the 5 and a new version of the Twingo. Audi's product strategy at the moment seems to be "try everything and pivot" so they might even end up relauching the A2 by accident.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#315

Post by leakycap »

dagw wrote: post #309
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally you should be driving the car until the wheels fall off anyways. Faffing about selling cars and buying newer ones is a waste of money.

Driving a car until the wheels fall off generally doesn't make financial sense. Keeping an old car on the road gets really expensive unless you have the space, time and skills to do all the work yourself. Then there is the opportunity cost of not having access to your car for days/weeks at a time while it is being repaired. Finally you have the stress of not being quite sure if your car will start when you turn the k…

Same with technology. If you aren't rich, selling around the time the next model comes out is actually a great way to avoid paying full price for your modern tech.

With Apple stuff, waiting more than 1-2 cycles means you've missed the ability to recoup most of your costs AND you got to use an old device for an extra year... yay?

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#316

Post by whatevaa »

puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #261

You can still buy a new subcompact car (like a Renault Clio or Skoda Fabia) in Europe for under 20k EUR. The more interesting question is why these cars disappeared in the US. And while many of the factors discussed here are true for both EU and US (inflation, interest rates, manufacturer profit margins etc) I am surprised no one mentioned the 'SUV loophole' of US regulations that effectively boosted the SUVs (off-ro…

They are disappearing in europe too. Emissions and other required by law equipment costs just as much on cheap car as it does on expensive one. At some point, cheap cars stop beinf cheap, just a bit cheaper but with way worse quality, so they stop making sense.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#317

Post by iib »

ml_basics wrote: post #179
tricolon wrote: post #130

Earlier 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…

Some already consider this a new dialect. It's called Euro English[1]. There are some more examples in that wikipedia article. Not just synonyms, but grammar as well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#318

Post by dagw »

darth_avocado wrote: post #110
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do the cost of cigarettes and alcohol. Things they burn a larger proportion of their money on than higher earners.

False equivalence. You can do without cigarettes and alcohol, but not without cars in majority of the United States. Only about 10% of the adults smoke vs car ownership in American households is 90% with almost 40% owning more than one car. Comparing what you necessity with a discretionary expense isn’t fair.

Comparing what you necessity with a discretionary expense isn’t fair.

A car might be necessity, but spending more than say $15-20k max on a (second hand) car is a discretionary expenses for the vast majority of people doing so.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#319

Post by dismalaf »

puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #261

You can still buy a new subcompact car (like a Renault Clio or Skoda Fabia) in Europe for under 20k EUR. The more interesting question is why these cars disappeared in the US. And while many of the factors discussed here are true for both EU and US (inflation, interest rates, manufacturer profit margins etc) I am surprised no one mentioned the 'SUV loophole' of US regulations that effectively boosted the SUVs (off-ro…

Because a big part of owning a vehicle is summer roadtrips, ski vacations, visiting family, moving stuff. An SUV is simply more convenient. I've also found road maintenance is getting worse where I live, it's almost necessary having an SUV or truck just to navigate the suburbs.

Also the (semi) compact crossover has kind of killed the compact car. You get more space, better ground clearance, for a decent price.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#320

Post by [deleted] »

leakycap wrote: post #301
harvey9 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's accounted for at the time they bought it since it was already hail damaged.

Is it savings if you buy an item worth less and you pay less? You're just buying a damaged item at that point ... which is worth less to everyone That isn't getting "deal" unless you plan to never liquidate... cars generally don't get used up like a can of soda, so the dent actually matters when you go to sell it.

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