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The $25k car is going extinct?

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Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#481

Post by amelius »

alias_neo wrote: post #416
amelius wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But at least you didn't waste $ on a big car.

If you had spent it, you might still be alive, and if you aren't, it's hardly wasted, since you no longer need it. Jokes aside, I live in the UK, and occasionality I see vehicles here that are entirely too big and unnecessary for our roads. There was a lady driving what I think was a Defender 130 (I don't know modern LRs too well), it was far too big for the parking spaces in the tiny car park we were in, she could o…

> If you had spent it, you might still be alive, and if you aren't, it's hardly wasted, since you no longer need it.

Only if you crash right after you bought the car ...

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#482

Post by CalRobert »

CalRobert wrote: post #339
dzhiurgis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have example of places with density similar to US where public transport works well? Australia has some in urban centres, but otherwise car centric. Same in NZ. Elecric bus to my place costs 8x more than driving EV (before it was taxed)

It’s not public transport but I live in a single family home in a town of 60,000 people and 70% of trips are made by bikes. https://youtu.be/r-TuGAHR78w 900 or so people per square km. To give a random comparison (because I know it well) Sacramento has a density of 2000 per square km and far, far worse transportation.

Addendum - not really a great comparison because houten has a lot of farmland which will affect the value (Sacramento has similar issues though)

Anyway the density doesn’t feel high here and maybe that’s the more relevant bit

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#483

Post by CalRobert »

potato3732842 wrote: post #456
CalRobert wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you don’t mention are the increased negative externalities of your larger vehicle, including a higher chance of killing people, more road space used for parking, worse visibility for others, etc.

I'll be sure to let my elderly mother know she's making society worse by going with the HRV instead of the Civic. In a world where ~half of all SUVs are some poof-ed up variant of a compact car a nuance free opinion like yours is just insufferable.

Yet you suffer it.

And yes, your mother is more likely to kill someone in a larger, heavier, vehicle. I don’t see how anything you said refutes that.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#484

Post by boringuser1 »

alerighi wrote: post #436
b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not merely an issue of obtaining materially desirable consumer goods though; lots of folks get car loans because they can't afford to buy a car, even a cheap car, without one. So it's either, don't get a car and give up a lot of opportunities or hope you live in a place with decent public transit (which is not a given in many places in the US)

You can always get an used car for practically any amount of money. A lot of time an used car is even more reliable than a new shiny car full of useless electronic components. To me buying new cars is just throwing away money, simply because at the moment you brought the car out from the dealer the car just is worth 3/4 of the price you payed it, and when you have to resell it in 10 years it is worth almost nothing.

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Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#485

Post by Orygin »

campl3r wrote: post #463
potato3732842 wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Flex is close to identical in form factor and size to a pre-oil crisis station wagon. Probably has less ground clearance too. It takes the honesty of a professional political to call it an SUV.

I got no good frame of reference, but google seems to suggest it's around 13% bigger than a typical station wagon. How is this car not considered a massive SUV?

This thing is so huge, I cannot comprehend the American carbrain if it's considered "average" for them

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#486

Post by lotsofpulp »

dismalaf wrote: post #319
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.

99% of people with an SUV will never use the "sport utility" aspect of it, and they could do all of the things you listed better with a minivan (Sienna/Odyssey/etc).

But the driver would have to sit lower in a minivan. Which is what SUVs are really about, the ego boost one gets from sitting higher up (and the associated feelings with being able to not have to settle for a minivan, and being able to waste a little money).

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#487

Post by potato3732842 »

lostlogin wrote: post #409
dagw wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Does a Toyota Corolla ever get unreliable or uneconomic to repair?

Yes.

Prices are all jacked up vs what you get because a historical surplus of very well kept cars on the used market has lead to every idiot on the internet being told they're somehow magical.

A badge on the grill doesn't make 100k the of uber miles that the 3rd owner put on or being habitually driven low on some key fluid by the 4th owner any less destructive.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#488

Post by boringuser1 »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #427
gmac wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting a loan for a car seems quite natural to me. A car provides service flows over a long period, so why not pay for it over a similarly long period? In the first year or two the car's value is probably below the outstanding loan amount, but beyond that it's likely to rise above it, so you're free to sell and walk away from the arrangement. Granted, high interest rates might make this a bad deal, but the principle…

Given that the car drops nearly 50% value as it leaves the lot, I'm not sure how this every pencils out before maybe 10 years 100k+ miles...Maybe these days given how hot the used car market is (driven by the expensive nature of newer vehicles), but again this is a chicken/egg problem. Your loan is exceedingly abnormal or from a past time as the average loan % in the US is much higher on that time scale.

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Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#489

Post by carefulfungi »

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…

This is partly contrary to the article - which claims that demand for inexpensive cars is high enough to cause their price to increase over MSRP.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#490

Post by potato3732842 »

puzzlingcaptcha wrote: post #245
leakycap wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all cars have turbos, all have abs/airbags/cameras... even counting the seat foam & covers, wheels, door cars... how cheap do you think a vehicle safe and comfortable for humans can be? The average car has tons of moving parts that have to be weatherproof, shakeproof, pothole-ready... stuff consumer tech doesn't dream of. It also has to be repairable, be engineered to meet all the regulations in various countr…

Almost all cars have turbos since that's about the only way to get similar performance out a sub-1L three-cylinder engine that you could get from a cheap, naturally aspirated 1.6L iron block back in the 90's. Emission and safety standards are nice, but the customer pays for it.

Exactly. Same reason Europe hung onto manuals so long. Only way to make that kind of car drive good in a pre-turbo and direct injection era was to give the user the option to wind it out and shift when they pleased.
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