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The $25k car is going extinct?

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Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#501

Post by benjiro »

blacklion wrote: post #404

I cannot reply to each comment which mention "EU" or "Europe", so I write this one. Why do you speak about EU/Europe as a whole? There is no such thing. I thought it is, but, now, when I moved to "Europe", I see that ti was illusion. Prices are different across countries. Do you think Poland, Portugal and the Netherlands have same prices? HA! Compare prices in the Netherlands and its neighbor Belgium. I didn't compar…

The "lifehack to buy car or motorcycle in Belgium and save 20%" is a Dutch only problem, as the Dutch Government makes car (and house) ownership extreme expensive. There is a reason why so many better off Dutch people buy properties and cars across the border, live in Belgium or Germany, and travel each day to work in the Netherlands.

For the rest of the EU, you can buy a Polish car, and register it in Germany for a few hundred euro's.

And FYI: The united states is the same. You can not just move cars across states if you live in a different state. It requires local registration per state (with different requirements), and local number plates.

Second: Yes, prices can differ for the same car, in different countries. And manufactures deliberately make it harder to price compare cars by changing the trim on each car / region. So the same car in Germany may have more features that are not present on the same car in Poland. And yet, again, in the States prices often differ per state. For the same reason why a Polish car can be trimmed down to be cheaper, vs a German version of the car: Not every state has the same medium income. So car manufacture / dealers, price match the cars and options, according to the local demographic.

The rest is a useless discussion as this is regional food, vs regional companies. You may discover that in the US, despite the same global brandnames, there are often large differences between stores, based upon the regional eating habits, and local food producers. Yes, there is more standardization because of the global monopoly level of food production but regional is still a major thing.

> There is no such single entity as "Europe" or "EU". Different countries are very different in available goods, prices, taxes and regulations.

First off, its EU, not Europe. People simply associate the EU with Europe. That is a common issue and not something to nitpick about.

You may be surprised how much we already standardized across the EU. Have you ever left the Netherlands? I mean, not just cross border travel but actual work / live? If you did that now, 10 years ago, or 20 years ago, each time the difference are huge (as in easier and easier). A lot of laws and rules are now standardized across the EU. Hell, i remember the days that getting a piece of paper involved notarization and legalization, now its just a quick call to the ambt and you get a EU version of the paperwork. Valid in all EU states.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#502

Post by dismalaf »

CalRobert wrote: post #405
amelius wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, if you kill someone in a traffic accident, you feel shit the rest of your life.

I’m not sure, a lot of people seem quick to blame children for “darting” in to the road instead of accepting responsibility for operating a dangerous machine.

If the child darts into the road without space for you to stop, not even you driving a subcompact can save them...

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#504

Post by taneliv »

BanterTrouble wrote: post #447
a_c wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendation how to start learning repairing a car? I have absolutely zero experience. A friend of mine said just learn to change a tyre first and I have been procrastinating since.

I am still a somewhat of a novice. Your friend is right IMO. Do something simple first. Like a broken piece of trim, replace a light bulb, change the wiper blades yourself and build yourself up. I had repaired bicycles/motorcycles before hand. Past that. I literally go on YouTube and watch someone do the task I intend on doing. I have the service manual downloaded for the car (people dump scans of the manuals online…

A word of warning. Usually these things are simple, but not always. Either way, you'll get your hands dirty, and mind off other things.

The YT video for changing my cars' front light bulbs was less than two minutes. After half an hour and a lot of scratches / bruises, I thought I got it done. Started the car, checked the light goes on and off. Scrub hands from dust and dirt, be happy.

Mandatory inspection two months later found out that it was pointing so badly off that their targeting device could not even get a reading. In other words, I had been blinding oncoming traffic. Car didn't pass inspection, I was defeated, and took it to the mechanic.

He also spent twenty to thirty minutes on readjusting the bulb, before it was done and up to spec. It costed only 15 euro, though, as they also expected it to be a 30 second operation.

I guess my point is, don't get discouraged when things don't work immediately, or don't work exactly like a manual / video makes you think. Often it's a learning experience, and while those can be fun, they also sometimes are very much not.

(I'm also a complete novice, and not particularly enjoying the experience, just not affluent enough to pay for all of the maintenance work.)

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#505

Post by smidgeon »

pattle wrote: post #361

Spending $25k on a car (if they exist) is just an insane thing to do in my opinion. In the UK we are quite lucky in that the used car market is very good. I always just buy a ~£1,000 diesel and run it into the ground, then rinse and repeat. I think in 17 years of motoring I've spent around £5,500 in total on cars.

A friend and I bought a car with a busted door for £100 some years ago, we got a cheap replacement door, incompetently resprayed it to be roughly the colour of the rest of the car and sold it, for £100 :-|

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#506

Post by roenxi »

moconnor wrote: post #472
ajkjk wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the question we're asking is why the price of cars went up. "Inflation" isn't an answer. Inflation is what we call the price of cars going up. It still happens for a reason...

No. Inflation is what we call the value of money going down. As evidenced by needing to part with more of it in exchange for a standard basket goods. It is fundamentally different to ask whether cars cost more because money is worth less, or whether cars cost more because we are making them less efficiently. The ancestor comment points out that most of the change can be attributed to the former and as cars are only a…

Or, to put it another way, going by the thread ancestor we expect the price of cars to have risen around 26.2% due to currency devaluation. If the price of cars has risen 29.2% it is more or less pointless to look at the car industry for an explanation. The price has risen by roughly what we'd expect if they were doing what they've been doing with no real changes.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#507

Post by bumby »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #429
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…

> I am surprised no one mentioned the 'SUV loophole' of US regulations that effectively boosted the SUVs (off-road vehicles are classified as non-passenger automobiles with everything that entails, notably much less stringent emission standards) and made the small cars unprofitable to make in comparison. This has become the irrelevant part because "does it have an electric motor in the powertrain" has become more imp…

>Hybrids have a lower TCO even though they have a higher initial purchase price.

Is this conclusion based just on fuel consumption? From a relatability standpoint, it doesn’t make sense at first blush because you have to have both ICE and EV parts in series in the drivetrain; the total reliability can’t be higher than the individual components of they’re in series.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#508

Post by wraptile »

ICE cars have peaked. ICE car from 2012 is almost no different from ICE car in 2025 other than entertainment value and this is why every manufacturer is targeting premium market even with solved ICE technology.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#509

Post by ekianjo »

bumby wrote: post #500
alerighi wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if they would make a basic car like in the past I would buy it. Everyone has to sell you too much, I want a simple car, I don't want either the stereo, I will add my own later (I can put it one that is better than the factory one for a cheaper price, but in a modern car replacing the stereo is almost impossible). There are a ton of useless sensors, the sensor that tells you if you have a flat tire (I think I can…

Some of those “useless” sensors like tire pressure or backup camera are required by law. Even if you get a bare bones hatchback (manual transmission, manual locks, manual windows etc.) they’ll be forced to include those.

Regulations will make cars unaffordable which is exactly what they are pushing for

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#510

Post by Spooky23 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #429
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…

> I am surprised no one mentioned the 'SUV loophole' of US regulations that effectively boosted the SUVs (off-road vehicles are classified as non-passenger automobiles with everything that entails, notably much less stringent emission standards) and made the small cars unprofitable to make in comparison. This has become the irrelevant part because "does it have an electric motor in the powertrain" has become more imp…

Only if you keep them for a long time. Most people drive around 15k miles, the gas difference ends up to about $2500/yr.

If you drive a lot, different story.

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