I wanted to cheap, small, 2wd pickup to toss rocks and woodchips and the like into for around the town chores which I seem to do a lot of. Does not exist, somewhere along the line everyone decided a pickup truck is some sort of luxury vehicle with all kinds of bells and whistles. While base model trucks are affordable, I cannot find one anywhere, only high-level trims are available. And a used truck with 100k miles is still outrageously expensive and I have shell shock from the Jeep engine blowing up at that milage.
Some years ago, 'above median' didn't count as 'rich'. There were 'the masses' maybe like 90% then a bourgeoisie maybe the next ones above that, then less than 1% aristocracy and nobles. Also social class wasn't determined solely by net worth or income. Maybe we will go back to that kind of situation where the median will be considered squarely in 'the masses' class and nowhere near 'rich'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T#Price_and_product...
> I will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one – and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces.
EDIT: Also, people today would be calling Ford as literally communist
What is this supposed to mean? I'm not sure if I'm being obtuse or its too profound for me to understand.
We're already there. American society has stratified into three groups over the last 20 years. There's the 99th percentile elite who have hoarded over half of all overall wealth, the 90th percentile bourgeois (tech workers, lawyers, doctors, etc.) that are able to maintain a modicum of security and prosperity through real wage growth, and then the masses below who are desperately working themselves to death for near starvation wages to service the above two classes, with zero chance of economic mobility.
Note that taxes are progressive, so from a $70k wage you get about $10k "free cash" to spend, whilst a $100k wage gives you the above number of about $20k.
So it takes A little over 2.5 years' worth of average full-time wages to buy a car in the US.
Therefore I disagree, the problem is the average cost of a new car, expressed in labor (2.5 years average full-time labor), much more than the stratification of US society.
I would argue 6 months full-time labor would be quite expensive for a car, and for the value of a car to be that, you'd need to make $170k per year, you'd have to be in the top 10%. Only at a 5% income do the cars this article talks about become reasonably priced. And I do mean reasonably priced. Not cheap.
Second problem is if you look at where the problem is, profit ("capitalism") ... is not the problem. GM makes $2,150 per car, the average car manufacturer half that, according to Google. Whilst this amount would move the needle a bit, it would certainly not solve the problem. That would make cars affordable for the top 11% of the population (and that's taking the GM figures), which would be just the tiniest of improvement.
According to this article:
https://carfromjapan.com/article/industry-knowledge/how-much...
Only raw material cost, labor and (barely) tax would make a decent dent (at least 10%) in the cost of a car.
Note: numbers all just Googled and taken at face value, maybe converting to per year (from per month) but no more processing. Obviously big mistakes could have happened, although I think not. I could do better but back of the envelope this should be about correct.
But what they did was, they killed the Fit in the US. So now the cheapest Honda car you can get is the Civic. Which isn't the small car it used to be.
I mean also, how much does this tech cost really? A backup camera? You really gonna claim that cars are unaffordable because of a $20 LCD and $10 camera installed into the bumper?
Pre-collision warnings, blind spot monitoring, it's all 20 year old tech now. And it comes in everything.
Yes. An automotive-grade LCD that will last years, plus a camera that will survive the elements, not mention the unreliable power supplies on which these must operate. Then 10+ feet of cable. Then the dozen little plastic clips to keep that cable secure. Then the manpower to install all of this. Yes. That camera system is more expensive than an injection-molded mirror bolted to the exterior of a car or glued to a windscreen. Multiply that by dozens of similar little things and it does result in more expensive vehicles.
The irony is that vehicles are now ridiculously safe in comparison to decades past. Regulators who for years improved safety by leaps and bounds (seat belts, crumple zones, anti-lock breaks etc) are now forced to playing at the margins. Every incremental improvement now comes at greater and greater complexity/mass/cost. Rear view and side mirrors are going away soon, to be replaced by backup cameras. Also are coming anti-drunk features. There is serious talk about interlock breathalyzers being built into all steering wheels. This is going to get much worse.
For those who cannot afford a car but still need to travel the distances, there is always motorcycles. New two-wheeled vehicles are still cheap.
The downsides, however, is that while the car part of the car is more durable and long-lasting than ever, the software/computer parts of the car are hamstrung by terrible decisions that are sure to age very poorly. This will only get worse when GM decides they want to turn the infotainment screen into a data-harvesting cash cow.
Also, this will slow down the transition to EVs. And it ends up saturating the used car market with cars designed with the tastes of show-boating new-car buyers in mind. This screws over people who just want a humble, reliable, practical vehicle instead of an overspecced, oversized, brodozer.
From a purely carbon perspective, new cars are always cleaner than old cars. This is simply due to less wear and tear, and technology improvements.
https://insideevs.com/news/666533/average-ev-transaction-pri...
The average EV price is not yet less than the average internal combustion vehicle price, but it's getting close. TCO for the average EV is almost certainly less than TCO for the average ICE vehicle.
Both ICE & EV went up about $10K, but the EV price has dropped back and the ICE hasn't.
$21k in Jan 2017 is nearly $26k Jan 2023. There seems to be plenty of new cars that cost that amount.
The other change I wonder is just the longevity of cars (which could counteract impact from cash for clunkers). My father used to buy a new car every 3-4 years in the 90s because cars sucked. Cars are more expensive now, but last much longer. My 7 year old car is as good as new still, my dad kept his last car 10 years.
Is a product that lasts triple the amount of time for less than triple the old price actually more expensive? No, but it IS now contradictingly unaffordable. It becomes the rich people and shoes trope. Poor people can only afford cheap shoes that wear out more often. When I could afford nice italian boots that lasted longer and were amazingly more comfortable I actually spent less on shoes, but I had to be able to shell out $500 for boots. Now I can only afford $40 for junk. Heck I have shirts from Nordstroms from 10 years ago that I still get complimented on but can't replace and am forced to slowly replace with cheap garbage shirts than wear out in a year because I'm broke and am sad to see myself fall into that trap knowing I am throwing away money to the benefit of looking worse for more $$$ spent over time.
All that said having moved down about 10 social economic groups the people I know have 2 daily struggles that keep them in constant anxiety. Housing and keeping their cars running. The system is not going to hold if this keeps up. People can't live in this constant stress and anxiety with no hope and are going to look to some way out. In the past in other countries that's been far left or far right political charlatans. Yet the people up high still expect the status quo to hold and are doing nothing to make things better.
https://www.carboncounter.com/#!/explore
Note you can tweak specific rebates and/or gas prices, mileage per year, length of ownership etc. in the advanced options and they have presets for each state.
My electric company just introduced a 2.9c/kWh overnight rate. At 4 miles/kWh, that works out $1450 for 200,000 miles.
The link goes to the Launch Edition. But you can edit the options to reduce the sticker price to $25,600.
However, the All-Wheel option is tempting. Nobody needs a 0-60MPH in 3.5 seconds car, but it's very cool, anyway.
Depending on your commuting needs and sun availability in your area you might not need to recharge, ever.
In short, both cars themselves and car-financing are more expensive.
E.g. https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/advice/interest-free-car...
https://www.kansascityfed.org/Economic%20Review/documents/93...
> Ramirez, 33, and his wife Angelica Castro-Calle really want a new, small SUV with a little space for camping and paddleboarding gear
> Johnny Loredo and his wife paid $38,000 for a new Nissan Frontier truck
> If they hadn’t had a used Suburban to trade in
Yeaah. That could be the issue. People aren’t looking to buy cars anymore, but tanks.
And the first part of the quote describes a small SUV for another couple. Everyone’s definition of “small SUV” will vary, but I’m not sure many would infer tank.
Of course, your definition of tank could be very different to mine.
[1] https://economics.td.com/us-vehicle-sales [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ALTSALES
Well that used to be true, the actual painful thing going on with the car market right now is that in some ridiculous twist of events is that used costs more than new for a lot of vehicles. So yes new cars are more expensive, but used cars are a lot more expensive which hollows out the market that serves the average car buyer.
Kia Rio starting at $32k, with median salary 15% lower than the US.
But if you want to look like a _____ in a lifted dodge ram, well, we'll be happy to give you plenty of room on the road to roll your coal.
However, they're rolling right back off the lots too, after 3+ years of shortages.
But even then, Dodge does offer their 3500 at a base trim that's only a bit over the $40k bar I set (about $45k for the Tradesman trim). And you'll be foregoing electric for a few more years (or purchasing specialized construction equipment).
I have to say though, this is a bit of a different usecase than a family purchasing a car. Such a vehicle is going to be more of a work expense, after all.
20,000 pounds is well into medium or heavy duty truck territory.
But in the end, I'll take a pretentious prick over a malicious prick.
Cars as a whole are massively much more reliable for a lot longer than they used to, making used cars way more viable for most people.
Even the traditionally less-reliable brands are not exploding at 70k miles like they did 15 or 20 years ago.
Assuming that's true, then this whole chip shortage would have been a great time for someone to bring a software-less, low-tech vehicle to the market. I've personally been wanting that as our last vehicle completely shit the bed when the digital transmission encountered an error. Plus I hate touch screens in cars.
A linux car seems a fun twist.
2023 Nissan Versa - $17,366 2023 Kia Rio - $18,371 2023 Mitsubishi Mirage - $17,140
Just sayin....
The story here is just “inflation happened”
And now they want to gate features in my car behind yearly subscriptions, they can fuck right off. I'm not even tempted to buy new. I'm more likely to start buying older I don't want my car getting random software bugs and phoning home to turn of my heated seats.
