661–670 of 1001 posts
They don't mention the amount of mandatory additions to the car from government regulations. Obviously not the only factor but it's certainly a factor. Cars now have 6 to 8 airbags, backup cameras, more high strength steel, automatic breaking systems etc etc. I love the safety that those all bring, but it's not free.
> automatic breaking systems Literal planned obsolescence !
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> So if you saw the pretax figures it'd probably be true But why would I look at the pretax figures? Who would look at that, unless you're doing a business purchase? It basically has no meaning for the average person since they'll never buy anything without the taxes anyways.
Because sales tax in the US varies wildly by locality: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Sales_ta... Some places that is the price of the car.
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Tire sensors and backup cameras are dirt cheap though. Maybe lane warning and collision avoidance are a bit more but they’re both 10+ year old technology, they can’t cost that much. Also all of these things are good. Redoing the steering wheel or using 22” wheels or adding heating for each individual ass cheek… that I don’t need, and it adds to the cost.
You can't replace a tire sensor without getting it coded. Complete bullshit.
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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.
The tyre pressure sensor you can make an argument to be required by law as uneven tyre pressures can negatively effect handling. However the backup camera being required by law is absolutely ridiculous. You can just either use the mirrors or turn your head.
If the US weren't so obsessed with enormous cars with terrible visibility, I think this would be a different conversation.
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but I'm guessing those are post tax prices .. While in the US prices are pre-tax So if you saw the pretax figures it'd probably be true
> So if you saw the pretax figures it'd probably be true But why would I look at the pretax figures? Who would look at that, unless you're doing a business purchase? It basically has no meaning for the average person since they'll never buy anything without the taxes anyways.
Otherwise, feel free to adjust $10k -> $12.5k or whatever the VAT is in your region.
I work on my own cars now (as a hobby really) and one of the reasons the new cars are so expensive is they are much more complicated. A lot of this seems to be over-engineering IMO. This is alluded to in the article, but not explicitly stated. The cars I work on are from the early 90s and everything is very simple to understand. e.g. Electronics are normally simple circuits that aren't much more complicated than what…
If you were to take an older, simple to understand car, and add all of the modern features through aftermarket addons, you would end up with a car that is no longer simple to understand. They were simple to understand, because the feature set was simple compared to a modern car. (And I miss them dearly - can't wait to retire to find the time to find that love again!)
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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…
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First of all, that statement is entirely untrue. These cars aren‘t 10k in most (all?) of the EU for example. As far as I know, these 10k cars are really only a thing in china and some SEA markets (I am not sure if these cars are really that cheap adjusted to purchasing power in these markets). Beyond that, the chinese EV brands are in market capture mode right now. The competition is cut throat and the margins are ex…
American expat living in Thailand reporting in. I think the cheapest car in Thailand is the 2025 Suzuki Celerio which is a 5 seater hatchback. At the current exchange rate it's $9,800 brand new. Of course this figure is not adjusted for purchasing power (so what?). We have BYDs here and I haven't really looked at them but pretty sure a few are under $25K. If Americans can't get a new car for under $25,000 but Southea…
If they were perfectly interchangeable, sure. But if nothing else, lets look at safety and emissions regulations -- different regulatory regimes will absolutely put different requirements onto the build and components. Not an expert in automotive regulation in SEA vs. US, but I'd buy this argument more if the comparison was between, say, Europe and the US.
There's also likely a bunch of soft cost differences -- dealership dynamics, etc. that add a fair amount to the sticker price, and those probably do have some merit to your case.
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I think in time we see a similar trend with EVs. They are, by many metrics, vastly less complicated in terms of hardware. Software, of course, is another matter.
Software doesn't have to be complex. The most complex piece of software EVs absolutely need is the BMS and the charging protocol. Everything else is super basic. There's a reason some of the earliest vehicles were EVs.
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Inflation is a result of too much money being created than what is needed by the growth of the economy. Average price increase that we use to estimate it is just a useful proxy. Inflation is always the main contribution to price increase. It only makes sense to compare price raise above or below inflation if you want to unearth factors specific to any given product or industry.
Inflation is completely possible with no change in money supply. This is handled in economics with the idea of the "velocity of money" which conceptually captures the large range of factors by which prices can increase due to factors beyond money supply, for example an energy price shock or changing consumer and business expectations that result in changes in spending and investment patterns.