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The $25k car is going extinct?

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Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#91

Post by timewizard »

standardUser wrote: post #87

Americans like to upgrade their cars, not unlike their cell phones, and they often have a monthly car payment (or two) that never permanently goes away. That makes some sense to me, but if the goal is to always have a nice car, doesn't it makes much more sense to lease? The monthly payments will be a few hundred bucks less and you can upgrade every 2-3 years. And from what I understand, leasing agents like to give in…

Read that lease contract carefully. It's meant for a very narrow segment of drivers.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#92

Post by msgodel »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #73
msgodel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>having a monthly car payment in perpetuity is considered acceptable. I think that really depends on what part of America. At least where I grew up around a bunch of middle class conservatives listening to eg Dave Ramsey (who has other problems IMO) most people think of you as reckless/irresponsible for doing that sort of thing.

I grew up around a bunch of middle class conservatives in the Southern USA and almost all of them were into debt on house, car, often even taking loans to pay for kids private school. And you'd never know until the family divorced and their lifestyle drastically decreases. Dave Ramsey has to be relatively new because debt was extremely extremely common among conservatives in the US (no idea about liberals didn't live…

A good portion of them did get a mortgage. To my knowledge none of them have car payments, most drive used beaters like I do.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#93

Post by paxys »

defrost wrote: post #79
AJ007 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a better title for the article is how western automakers are going to go extinct. Sure the US might decide to block Chinese cars (apparently the EU isn't), but they can't force the rest of the world to buy $65,000 American built cars when the alternatives are less than 1/3rd of that price. A larger question is how much the cheap Chinese cars are dependent on a long chain of government subsidies from the mines t…

The answer to your question is less and less every year with only sales tax exemption remaining as the greatest support provided. That support did total some US $231 billion over 14 years from 2009 through until 2023. You can see more at: https://www.csis.org/blogs/trustee-china-hand/chinese-ev-dil... (June 2024) There are at least two different ways to interpret the data on industrial policy support for EV makers. C…

> These estimates reflect the combination of five kinds of support: nationally approved buyer rebates, exemption from the 10% sales tax, government funding for infrastructure (primarily charging poles), R&D programs for EV makers, and government procurement of EVs.

The first two (and maybe part of the fourth) I can understand, but the rest are too much of a strech to count as a government subsidy. Every government builds roads and other car-related infrastructure. Every government purchases vehicles for its own use. Every government subsidizes R&D in new fields.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#94

Post by lispisok »

brandall10 wrote: post #89
chasd00 wrote: post #53

The sweet spot has always been a 1 year old used car with low miles. There’s lots of those for less than or about $25k. Honda, Toyota, and Mazda have models in those ranges that will easily last a decade.

Even better, a 3 year old used car with low miles. In 2016 I picked up a 2013 320i Sport w/ 22k miles on the clock for $18.5k. The sticker on the car was just over $36k. I did have to fly to a relatively remote town (Ogden Utah) and drive it home to San Diego, so that was an extra $320 for the plane ticket/shuttle/gas and 14 hours out of a saturday. It was almost out of warranty, so pre-purchase I paid a local shop $…

I looked into that when I was buying a car in 2020 and I found the price discount wasnt nearly as big as I thought it was going to be plus the car was out of warranty plus all the parts now had 10k miles of wear on them. A new set of tires is like $1200. I was able to spend a few grand more for a brand new car of the same model.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#95

Post by jccalhoun »

in 2021 my beloved Honda Fit got totaled. I bought it new in 09 and only had 80K miles on it. They don't sell new ones in North America any more. So I bought a Kia Rio. They don't make those any more. I don't really like it but with the current chaos in the economy I'm not trading it in any time soon.

I was in the UK for the first time last month and was struck by how many hatchbacks and sedans they have that we don't in North America.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#96

Post by timewizard »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #10
999900000999 wrote: post #8

We don't want affordable Chinese EVs. That's the answer here. They can build cars better, cheaper, faster than we can. Instead Ford wants to sell a 80k SUPER F-250 BIG MANN TRUCK. All for what, you to drive 10 minutes to Walmart, buy groceries and drive back. The best car is the one you don't own. No payments, insurance, parking tickets. Unfortunately most American cities are centered around driving. So much money ,…

F-450 King Ranch Super Deluxe.. all made from plastic and guaranteed not to last longer than 8 years. Most engines of new vehicles are sleeved and cannot be rebuilt in the spirit of designed for manufacturing and profits > designed for durability.

Yep. Then add in all the regulatory systems. DEF, EGR, Catalytic Converter, Turbo, 10 speed transmissions. They're all fragile and fall out of warranty coverage easily.

RAM is apparently going to use plastic control arms in it's new vehicles.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#97

Post by Gigachad »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #34
999900000999 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the man, I’ll admit in my early twenties I meet a few partners by being car free. I legit took a girl home after I asked her if she knew why the train was late. In Amsterdam at least one of the train stations has a piano. It becomes a 3rd place were people can make friends and socialize. We don’t have many 3rd places in the US where you can exist without spending money.

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)

Australia kind of gives you the choice. The inner city areas have great PT, great public spaces and some awesome outdoor walkable retail/food streets. But then you've also got the outer suburbs which is a hellscape similar to the US.

It's also not that expensive to rent inner city or buy an apartment. The outer suburbs mostly exist because people have a mentality of invest in land at any cost, even if it means living in a wasteland and commuting 3 hours a day.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#98

Post by brandall10 »

lispisok wrote: post #94
brandall10 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better, a 3 year old used car with low miles. In 2016 I picked up a 2013 320i Sport w/ 22k miles on the clock for $18.5k. The sticker on the car was just over $36k. I did have to fly to a relatively remote town (Ogden Utah) and drive it home to San Diego, so that was an extra $320 for the plane ticket/shuttle/gas and 14 hours out of a saturday. It was almost out of warranty, so pre-purchase I paid a local shop $…

I looked into that when I was buying a car in 2020 and I found the price discount wasnt nearly as big as I thought it was going to be plus the car was out of warranty plus all the parts now had 10k miles of wear on them. A new set of tires is like $1200. I was able to spend a few grand more for a brand new car of the same model.

It might be a German car thing, as the value drops precipitously once it's close to out of warranty. There were barely any savings on cars that were within a year old, whereas I was able to get something for half sticker that was nearly the same vehicle.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#99

Post by philwelch »

msgodel wrote: post #29
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…

>having a monthly car payment in perpetuity is considered acceptable. I think that really depends on what part of America. At least where I grew up around a bunch of middle class conservatives listening to eg Dave Ramsey (who has other problems IMO) most people think of you as reckless/irresponsible for doing that sort of thing.

Dave Ramsey is perfect for the type of people who need Dave Ramsey. If you’re a standard deviation or two above the median person in terms of having your shit together and being smart about personal finance you can do a few things more optimally than he would recommend, but the advice that works for that person could easily ruin most people.

Re: The $25k car is going extinct?

#100

Post by whycome »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #85
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up around a bunch of middle class conservatives in the Southern USA and almost all of them were into debt on house, car, often even taking loans to pay for kids private school. And you'd never know until the family divorced and their lifestyle drastically decreases. Dave Ramsey has to be relatively new because debt was extremely extremely common among conservatives in the US (no idea about liberals didn't live…

Houses are debt, but are generally and appreciating asset Cars are a depreciating asset. It usually does not make sense to go into debt to get one

It’s interesting how the language allows a weird cognitive out. It’s not debt, it’s a mortgage and they ‘own’ the home.
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