I’m not trying to be clever when I say that plenty of companies make affordable cars, but no one has figured out how to make cars affordable. The government? Nope. Dealers? Definitely not. Automakers? Nah. The Fed? Also, nope. It’s a solvable problem, but no one seems to be solving it.
I’ve long ago declared affordability to be the issue of 2026 for the car industry, and this will not be the last Morning Dump dedicated to the problem. I will also not solve the problem this morning, but I want to lay the groundwork for why it feels so intractable. This ongoing tension has helped create Carvana and, occasionally, destabilized it.
Not like anyone has it quite figured out anywhere. Both Tesla and BYD would like to be the biggest seller of electric vehicles, and both are floundering in various markets to start the year. The World Rally Championship has also struggled in the United States, but it sounds like it might be coming back.
Affordability Is A Symptom Of A Diseased System, Not The Disease Itself
It is simplistic to say that greed is at the center of all of life’s problems. That Late Capitalism is the main cause. Or politics. Or the existence of an independent central bank. Or free trade. Or the Internet. Or whatever you like.
All of those are fair targets, and if you are trying to win an election or get subscribers for your Substack, a polemic focused on any of the above is going to likely to be a success. The much harder argument to make, and the far less satisfying one, is that it’s more complicated than that. In fact, I’d say the complexity is the problem.
What do I mean? There are affordable cars for sale. A lot of them. I just drove a Nissan Sentra, and I’m currently driving a Chevy Trax (reviews coming), and both of those are reasonably-priced cars that you can find at dealerships. People don’t necessarily want a Trax or a Sentra. Both are only available as FWD, Chevy and Nissan may not exactly be the most desired brands, and many cheaper cars are small in a country that doesn’t love small cars. I think people are being shortsighted not to consider either of these two, but I understand how some people may have earned or inherited a reasonable prejudice against either.
Even if you like either, keeping them affordable, though, is a challenge. Why? As Cars.com points out, few of the affordable cars for sale in the United States are actually made in the United States:
Inventory of new vehicles priced under $30,000 — the most tariff-sensitive segment — averaged 13.6% share in the first half of 2025. This is down significantly from 2019, when entry-level vehicles made up 38% of the market and reflects the third consecutive month of declines. With 92% of these vehicles built outside of the U.S., tariffs are disproportionately affecting this entry-level tier, which relies almost entirely on foreign-built vehicles.
This starts to get complicated again, because while there are some affordable cars for sale, not every brand makes a lot of its cheapest cars readily available. This trend started during the pandemic, when automakers had to make hard choices about which cars they could build, and the answer was to mostly build higher trim levels of pricier cars. You might think that’s greedy, but it’s also logical.
Automakers are starting to offer lower trim models again, and that starts with Honda, which is one of two brands that make a sub-$30k car in the U.S. with the Civic (the other is Toyota with the Corolla). That’ll help, because these are almost universally popular brands.
Problem solved? Nope! Even if you can find a sub-$30k car you like for sale, the cost of buying the car is high if you don’t have a lot of cash to put down. Before you even get to insurance costs, just financing a car is expensive, and has led to more people taking out $1,000+ a month car loans than ever before. The Federal Reserve Bank declined to lower rates, and it’s complicated, but that means relief for borrowers is probably not in the cards anytime soon.
Should the Fed cut? That’s a conversation for another time, but I’m personally conflicted. I have a sense that we’re in a bit of an AI bubble, and allowing people to borrow more money, cheaply, while a bubble is going on, could have disastrous consequences.
Could politics solve this? I think politics, partially, is to blame. I can also make this bipartisan. The government, broadly construed, pushed electric cars. That money was supposed to eventually return a profit. For most automakers, it has not, and they’ve taken billions of dollars in losses. Would this have changed if an administration change hadn’t occurred and EVs were still given tax credits? I’m not sure that would have solved the demand problem. Either way, the reversal hurt, and then tariffs were added on top of that.
If you’re an automaker, what should you do? Stick with EV investments, knowing that the next White House could bring them back? Onshoring is happening, and was already happening before President Trump, but what if the Supreme Court cancels the tariffs? What if a new Congress does? What if, eventually, a new President does? Automakers are paying for both tariffs and EV investments, with no promise of how either will eventually turn out for them. It makes tossing a bunch of incentives on new cars that much harder, as well as investing in building a small car platform in, say, Cleveland.
What about the dealers? There’s understandably not a huge amount of sympathy for dealers, but they’re also stuck dealing with these forces. Automotive News polled a bunch of them, and the answer seems to be that they also have no clue:
Buyers who have an expiring three-year lease are finding a replacement vehicle carries payments hundreds of dollars more expensive than their last, said Andy Guelcher, chairman of the Chevrolet National Dealer Council and dealer principal of Mohawk Chevrolet in Ballston Spa, N.Y. But this isn’t sustainable.
“We have to be creative,” he said. “We have to use the resources that are available to us to make it as consumer-friendly as possible and to make it as affordable as possible.”
The answer is not to extend loan terms to 8-10 years because then customers will have negative equity in their vehicles “forever,” and won’t be able to trade them in, said Don Hall, CEO of the Virginia Automobile Dealers Association.
“That means that production will slow down,” he said. “That means that dealerships will be less successful because they’re not [selling] more frequently.”
Dealers have to borrow money to keep cars on the lot, and fewer cars might mean a better margin for automakers, but it squeezes customers and dealerships alike. Too many cars can also be a problem for dealers and automakers, because it causes prices to drop too fast and inventory to build up. That’s good for consumers in the short term, but it can also cause the value of cars to drop, which in turn keeps people in negative equity longer.
Above are not even all the problems; they’re just the ones that are easiest to diagnose.
Carvana Exists Because Of This Complexity
One of the most fascinating companies in the automotive world over the last ten years may not be Tesla. I’d argue it’s Carvana, a company that’s either raking in tons of cash while also earning huge valuations, or being accused of being a house of cards by short sellers. Kinda like Tesla. Also, like Tesla, it’s not always great to bet against the company.
There’s a fantastic write-up on the company in Bloomberg Businessweek that touches on what this company represents, and I appreciate that it addresses both of the key aspects of the company: Efficient organization and a scary loan business.
Buying a car from Carvana is easy, and the model makes a lot of sense. Some of this is because the company is very good at buying, selling, fixing, and moving cars. As the article points out:
Workers on the floor with iPads track the progress of vehicles under repair using Carli, a production management system Carvana developed with Oracle Corp. The software can proactively order parts based on the condition of a vehicle and the model. (Some models are more likely to need certain repairs.) Carvana says Carli and other improvements have helped cut operations costs by $1,700 over three years. The company spends an average of $900 a vehicle compared with rival CarMax Inc., which spends about $1,200, according to JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta.
That’s a big deal. With affordability an issue, and the dealership experience often a mediocre one for customers, Carvana makes it easy to buy a car and processes those cars quickly and cheaply. That’s all good, but what’s the scary part of the business?
Carvana’s stock is perpetually vulnerable to aggressive short sellers. On Jan. 28 Gotham City Research LLC published a report accusing Carvana of inflating its valuation by overstating earnings and obscuring transactions between different Garcia family-owned businesses, sending shares plummeting 14% that day. Although the stock price has begun to recover, Carvana’s otherwise lofty valuation is driven by an expectation that its rapid sales growth will continue. If it doesn’t, the company will be carrying substantial expenses from its rampant expansions. But for the moment, selling auto loans is a good business if you can get it. Carvana, which makes most of its income by selling the loans it originates, has been steadily turning a profit for almost two years. It originated $9 billion in loans in the first nine months of 2025 and has had no trouble finding buyers for the debt.
This is a bit like Wile E. Coyote running off the cliff. So long as the economy stays up and one looks down, Carvana doesn’t come crashing down. That feels like a tough bet, but it’s one Carvana feels comfortable making.
Tesla And BYD Are Not Starting The Year Off Great
I’m reusing this photo we made back when Tesla v. BYD had Tesla on top in a race to the moon. Now it’s a race to stay out of the gutter. As Electrek writes, Tesla “can’t find the bottom in Europe.”
The first batch of January 2026 registration data is in from Europe, and Tesla’s freefall on the continent shows no sign of slowing down. Across five major markets that have reported so far, Tesla registrations are down a staggering 44% year-over-year, extending what is now more than two years of continuous decline.
The company sold just 661 cars in France and just 83 in Norway, the one market where it usually did well. That’s an 88% year-over-year drop. Oops. Not like BYD is having the best time, either, as the rolling back of subsidies in China resulted in a 30% year-over-year decline for the brand.
Will this be the year that someone like Geely takes a huge chunk out of both?
WRC Wants That American Money
If a mostly European brand like F1 can succeed in the United States, then why not the World Rally Championship? The series hasn’t had an event here since 1988, and that’s far too long, reports Automotive News:
“The United States represents one of the most important growth opportunities for the FIA World Rally Championship,” said Mohammed Ben Sulayem, president of the sanctioning body. “It is a nation where motor sport is part of the cultural DNA, with world-class domestic championships and a rapidly growing appetite for global competition.”
The trial event will be held this summer between Kentucky and Tennessee.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Hey, it’s the Talking Heads saying “Don’t Worry About The Government.” Is David Byrne being sincere here? That’s the question with basically every Talking Heads song.
The Big Question?
You’re asked to solve affordability. Where do you start?
Top graphic images: stock.adobe.com; DepositPhotos.com
“You’re asked to solve affordability. Where do you start?”
These days it would be a BEV… with a basic skateboard design that would be RWD with optional AWD. And that design would be focused on a compact sized vehicle on the small end and could be stretched to a full size vehicle in theory.
It would be a basic design that would use a conventional non-air suspension
For bodies, I’d start with a compact/midsize hatchback (but advertise it as an SUV), a passenger and cargo minivan and a pickup.
Across these body styles it would be RWD in standard trim, AWD as an option which would also double as a performance upgrade. The motor used on the front and rear would be the same… but possibly with different gear ratios. And I think something with 150-200hp would be sufficient.
Across the body styles there would be maybe 3 basic trims… a “stripped” base model trim with very few (if any) options, a luxury trim and a performance trim (that would have AWD standard).
It would have A/C standard as that would be needed to also cool the battery as needed, but it would be a single zone system. It would also have other basics like power windows, power brakes, power steering, etc. A rear view camera is mandatory… so I would just make the standard rear view mirror also be the camera
The base trim would not have an expensive self-driving computer, ambient/unnecessary lighting, heated seats, heated mirrors… just the basics that are needed for regulatory reasons as well as minimum equipment levels so it’s sellable in as many markets as possible… both in hot and cold climates.
Luxury trim will be more expensive and actually have a decent variety of options.
Same with the Sport trim.
And the goal would be to have something that can be sold in huge volumes, have ‘good enough’ performance by modern standards and a basic design that would also be suited for kit cars like the original VW Beetle.
“Is David Byrne being sincere here? That’s the question with basically every Talking Heads song.”
That’s very astute, Hardigree. I’d never distilled that so simply.
I think I got that from Rob Harvilla.
I’m solving affordability by replacing my 10 year old daily with a 26 year old one.
I’ve never claimed to be a smart man. But I’ve fooled my wife into thinking this is a good idea, so there’s that.
Did you buy it for real?
Seller is gonna call me this afternoon after talking to his mechanic, I’ll know for sure then.
We were $1k apart on the price, so I called him yesterday and offered a compromise: I’d give him his number, plus $500 if he gets it safetied.
It removes surprise costs and logistics from me, and gives him the value he wants.
Best of luck, hope it works out.
I always loved those big brutes.
It’s weird that a gas guzzler makes economic sense. Such is the cost of trucks these days.
My wife let me pull crap like that in the 1990s. No longer. I have to buy things that run and are newer than what I am replacing.
We’re a multicar household, and after re-structuring and zeroing out our debt, she’s game for not taking on an $800/mo truck payment.
I’m thinking of doing a similar swap. A 8.1L 2500 Burb popped up for sale locally, that would be an interesting swap to replace my Type R daily driver
WOW. The last of the big blocks!
I could use a tow pig, and my commute dropped to at most 20mi/day with most days being 3mi
My commute is about 25 miles, but I’m only doing it 2-3 days a week with my current position.
I’m waiting for the Chinese EVs to drop, and then I ma grab a cheap one as a daily, since the tow pig will be paid for.
It will only get worse. ADAS features will become required in 2029, making cheap cars even more expensive to purchase, repair, and insure.
Affordable ‘cheap’ cars typically are not profitable for the manufacturer. If they could make a solid profit off a $20k vehicle, they’d probably be making them now.
That said I miss the old 80s – early 00s unpainted bumpers, single mirror, steel wheel basic cars that used to be offered.
Nailed it- add in that auto sales are generally a captive audience. Many are bought as a need, and many times in situations where you need a car NOW. There’s simply no business case to be made with inexpensive cars. And if an automaker did offer the cars with unpainted bumpers and steelies, so many people would eschew them because they don’t offer the comforts they want.
Yep something like this train of thought. ‘Geez for only $3k more I can have painted bumpers, alloy wheels, Carplay and remote start… totally doable over the course of my 5 year loan’
An Oracle deployment that saved $1,700? Hmm. I’m assuming that’s $1,700 per vehicle. I would like to meet Carvana’s PM for the Carli project. I’d imagine they would be in demand on the lecture circuit.
Remove tariffs and barrier of entry for cars under $25k. The domestic manufacturers can continue to live in the $30k+ market where they make better profits and foreign manufacturers can fill in the bottom of the market.
You best bet that Gm, Ford, and Stellantis will fight you tooth and nail to protect the idea that you need to spend >$50k for a car.
Aren’t we really just suffering from VW and Stellantis combined misreading of the world car market and auto dealers inability to admit that the money really comes from after sales service and not the horrible sales experience? If you constantly offer a shit experience in the front of the building you won’t see those customers in the back of the building.
Isn’t the proper question actually “how do we make affordable cars profitable?”
Per a Google AI summary (I know, I know…) “Typical Car Manufacturing Cost Breakdown
Raw Materials and Components (50-60%): Steel, aluminum, plastics, semiconductors, and batteries.
Overhead/Factory Costs (20-30%): This includes depreciation of machinery, factory energy, and maintenance.
Direct Labor (10-15%): Assembly line, quality control, and supervision.
Research & Development (10-16%): Engineering, design, and prototyping.
Logistics & Other (5-10%): Freight, tariffs, and customs.
Profit Margin (5-8%): Typical manufacturer profit, though it varies significantly.”
To address the materials cost cars would have to get smaller and lighter, less mass equals less materials equals less cost. Some of this is driven by people wanting big vehicles but some of the mass is driven by regulation which brings me to the next item. Research and development, a large portion of R&D can be cut by having less regulations that need to be met, and have validated and verified to. The other thing that will cut down on R&D will also cut down on the next category of Labor and overhead. This would be reducing vehicle complexity. Significant cuts to trim levels and options allows vehicle development to be streamlined and also allows manufacturing to streamline. The last few categories are harder to cut down on. Complex supply chains make shipping a reality for both components and completed vehicles. Having factories and major component suppliers local can help this but current structures are hard to undo. Marketing will probably stay what it always has been which brings us to profit margin. Margins on small vehicles are tight since the consumers for them are more cost sensitive. Everyone loves to pile on this thinking margins are inflating cost but if the margin is too small the money to make it will be better spent elsewhere or you run the risk of a recall pushing profits into the red.
Tldr: reduce costs with smaller, lighter vehicles that have less options and trims, and cut back on vehicle regulations.
I’m awfully suspicious of that AI cost breakdown.
If you add up just the low end of each category: 50% + 20% + 10% + 10% + 5% + 5% you end up with 100%.
That means that none of the upper end numbers they are giving can be true. Even the smallest one would put the total over 100%.
So what’s going on? Maybe AI has gotten bad information. Maybe it’s rolling up the same subsets of data into multiple larger sets. Lots of possibilities but who knows? AI won’t tell.
And I think this is a great example of how AI is substantially (often fatally) flawed by its prime directive of offering answers without being able to think whether it makes any sense.
AI could be a lot better on a whole host of issues by simply saying it can’t give a good answer. But saying that completely undercuts what the execs are selling, and they have deliberately designed AI to eliminate the truthfulness of uncertainty.
It would be an interesting experiment to try to train an AI to be able to say “I don’t know.” I’m honestly not sure it’s possible because the AI doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. All it’s doing is spitting out plausible sounding slop because that’s how the technology works. It’s right a surprising amount of the time and that fools people into thinking that it actually knows anything, but it’s all smoke and mirrors.
Although I will say that in an experiment with training a chat bot on some internal communications at my company, it was sometimes able to identify that a question was not appropriate for the audience (mostly because the training data frequently included that as a response to past questions), but it was unable to stop itself from answering anyway. Maybe you could train a model to just stop after saying “That’s really a question for team Foo, not team Bar.”
I won’t be doing that experiment though because at this point I think the likely harm from AI is substantially greater than the good it can do, so I have very little motivation to improve it.
How to make cars, or pretty much anything else affordable? A harsh reset of consumer expectations could be a first step, at least in the US.
Seems like the current (very generalized) expectations are:
I want a large vehicle with lots of space.
I also want it to be fast, and have lots of luxury add-ons, from giant wheels to electronics to massaging seats, to be “well equipped”.
I want it to be build in the US, by well paid factory workers earning upwards of 6 figures.
Oh, by the way, I also don’t want to spend much on it, it needs to be cheap.
Consumers don’t seem to get the whole concept of “size, features, made by well paid workers, affordable – pick 2.5”, they expect to get all 4.
I maintain that consumer expectations have shifted as a result of manufacturers forcing those shifts. Manufacturers decided to make higher margin trims only, and that started a war to turn everything into a S Class. They also decided to turn these things into data-collection monsters.
I can’t possibly be the only one that doesn’t want a car full of screens, not-button buttons, heated/cooled seats, radar-guided everything, and colored LEDs on every surface that isn’t a screen. Problem is, that’s all anybody sells now.
Give me a Slate. I’m sure they’ll never make it to production, and if they do I’m sure they’ll go bankrupt immediately or be bought out and shuttered. Damnit give me a simple, cheap, reliable car. You used to be able to get one of those from most manufacturers.
Jay’s Garage just had a YouTube segment on the Slate. Very interesting and worth the watch. I hope they make it. Very cool product.
I fully agree, and I think that there are a lot of people in this boat. I’m really hoping that Slate expands to more vehicle types, as I really like the concept, but not interested in a 2 door pickup/SUV. A Slate wagovan would be spot on for me.
I feel like there is a split into 2 consumer camps, those that want all the extras and features and are willingly paying the high prices for vehicles, and a much smaller group that wants the simple vehicles, but are just sitting and waiting for something. As long as there are a lot of people who want the big features though, that’s what the manufacturers will make, and I truly think that most new car buyers want all the extra stuff.
“That’s an 88% year-over-year drop.”
Heh. That particular number is awfully apropos of a company owned by Elon Musk. If a writer included that detail in a novel they’d be chided by their editor for being too on the nose.
“No one knows how to make cars affordable”
I call BS. Manufacturers absolutely know how to make cars affordable. They just don’t want to, and buyers have been trained not to want affordable cars. (I’m strictly speaking about the US here.)
The cheapest Toyota pickup in the US lists for about $33k. Toyota also makes a pickup truck called the Hilux Champ. It starts at $13k. Given US safety and emissions requirements, the Champ might cost $20k in the US. Why would Toyota sell a truck in the US that has a lower price and lower margins? There’s no good reason for them to do so.
Agree on this.
And the vehicles being offered new all almost overstuffed with options I would choose to delete if possible on a new car.
Another question for me is “car or CUV-SUV?
At the age now where a car is mostly a no go due to bad hips and knees. So a CUV-SUV, or truck now becomes the question.
I really wish that I could do a Toyota truck as a last vehicle purchase, but the prices are nuts.
Eh. I’d contend that a Tacoma SR Extended Cab 2WD is a pretty good value at $32k, although they’re pretty rare. Most people “need” crew cabs and 4WD, and that’s when the Tacoma starts to get expensive.
Sounds interesting. TBH not sure if I have even seen one in real life though.
Am sure they exist though.
I was looking and If I had to replace my JKU with new a new nissan frontier is actually not that expensive.
The affordable car company.
Welcome to Anvil.
Cars and trucks built to 70’s standards. No computers. No sensors. No cameras. No safety but a seatbelt. No EV. No hybrid.
Want A/C? That’s extra
Want a radio? That’s extra
Want a passenger side mirror? Extra
Rear bumper on the pickup? Extra
Think dealers will only stock fancy models? Nope. They have to have 30% cheap models on the lot or they don’t get any more. Mark-ups? Contract breaker.
Anvil. Hammer down!
Enjoy your 12mpg and exhaust cloud!
What do you want? It’s cheap!
Assemble it yourself for even greater savings!
Kit car option achieved.
It brings me little joy to say it, but the only realistic place is standards (safety, emissions, labor).
No, taking a touchscreen out of the car won’t save thousands, nor will deleting blind spot monitoring or whatever.
Letting it pollute to 1990s standards while getting 18 mpg and having only two airbags and a weaker crash structure would.
Is that a tradeoff we should make? Personally I say no, but I expect some here would roll the dice.
And what happens when the prices on the Cardboard Box car eventually start going up because we live under an economic system that, by its nature, demands never-ending profit?
Either no one will buy it, meaning car companies have to reduce prices until they do, or someone will find a market niche undercutting the legacy brands.
Why would anyone design, build, or sell anything without the profit motive? I find your question rather silly, as what you’re questioning is something I take as basic human nature.
Lose the inane tariffs and buy a Chevy Trax as your commuter/daily car. Then go buy your inexpensive toy car for driving fun. Could be an old VW convertible or an old Nissan Leaf. You know top down or enjoying electrons for tens of miles. We don’t all need a Porsche to live out our fantasies nor do we all need a 6000 pound SUV to get groceries
Looking at perfectly cromulent cars for comparison:
Honda Civic sales are down to ~240k per year in 2025 versus the ~377k they were in 2017. Same with the Toyota Corolla over that timespan. Each is a well built car that is reasonably affordable ($25-30k), yet has suffered a 35%+ decline in sales in less than a decade. More expensive CR-Vs and RAV4s fly off the dealer lots, to say nothing of even more expensive trucks.
This says to me: Affordability doesn’t mean much to the average buyer at this point in time.
And I don’t care how much this bongo drum is banged. At this juncture, an automaker would be foolish to push low-end vehicles that don’t sell when they can’t keep the higher margin ones on the dealer lot.
Toyota and Honda are wise to keep the Corolla and Civic around, because a full-line manufacturer will likely be able to cope with changes in demand at various price points in the future. The Japanese automakers were hurt less by the 2008/09 implosion because of this. We shall see how GM, Ford, and Stellantis weather the next economic storm.
Big checks from the federal government, probably.
yep “too big to fail” puke!
Gonna be interesting to see who gets the bailout money. AI companies or the Big 3. I’m leaning toward AI since they are useful for helping swing elections.
I was going to give this post a like, because I think you are right. But somehow I could not bring myself to click the smile button….SO thumbs up frown?
Take an old, amortized platform with simple engineering that’s been optimized for production efficiency, the oldest/most basic tech that’s still legally possible, delete every single feature not strictly required by regulations, build in non-union right to work state, that should help. And really get aggressive with the cuts – how many lugnuts do you really need, can the wheels be 13 inch instead of 15, can the bumpers be unpainted, are sealed beam headlights possible, is putting the screen in the rear view mirror and not having any radio cheaper than infotainment, are rubber mats cheaper than carpet? Etc. It can be done, but the margins would be razor thin and dealers would never order such a thing for inventory, and would try their absolute hardest to discourage any customers from special ordering one, so probably some new market entrant would have to come in to sell something like that vs an established automaker
So, Slate?
Except batteries are still kind of pricey
This is the kind of idea that if it ever made it to market, virtually everyone would just say, “Why not just buy a used Corolla for the same money?”.
What if you could lease it new for 1/2 the money of a used Corolla?
“The company spends an average of $900 a vehicle compared with rival CarMax Inc., which spends about $1,200”
I think that’s because Carvana doesn’t really do much other than give it a wash. I’ve had 2 cars from them and they both had major issues (one had a bent shock and one had brakes that were worn out and a bad ball joint). CarMax isn’t a ton better either. Think about the last car you bought used, didn’t it take more than $1,000 to get it up to snuff?
“Think about the last car you bought used, didn’t it take more than $1,000 to get it up to snuff?”
Nope.
Because I bought a CPO/off-lease car – so the dealer did all the cleanup and even put a new set of tires on the car to prepare it for sale.
Still got it for @ 40% under MSRP.
I suspect a more succinct overview of the situation would be that nobody wants to make cars more affordable; especially in the US where all the traditional incentives for doing so have been removed.
There will be a ton of “just buy used” are there enough used cars to last forever given demand? probably not.
The auto industry has spend 80 years pushing “luxury” and “image” and expensive comfort and convince add ons because it was printing money for them.
SO now every car “has” to have giant touch screens, 10 way power heated massaging seats, wireless phone charging” etc. They have actually out priced their customers.
“…but people don’t want cheap cars…” is their doing. They need change their own pants that they crapped in. They hosed themselves in the late 70’s and 80s when the Japanese companies sold people small good cheap cars. Time they take their own money to fix the problem of their own creation.
I agree that the used market coming out of the pandemic has been a big factor is affordability. The scarcity of new cars led to a massive increase in the cost of used cars. That followed by the scarcity of used cars (because lease numbers went down). The used market seems to be easing up a little bit, but you have to know where to look.
If you want a small to midsize crossover, used Equinoxes and Traverses are at pre-pandemic depreciation levels and after a few models years into their generations are very reliable. But if we go back to gas, we’ll probably go get a brand new Rav because I’m not accepting a 5% depreciation on a 2 year old one.
Dear Cars.com if you want to make an argument based on this market segment, make it based on inflation adjusted equivalents. 30k back in 2019 is equivalent to ~37.8k today. That is a HUGE disparity in price. Inflation exists, and was big over that span, so naturally the price category of sub-30k will decrease significantly. Give me a market share now of under 37.8k percentage wise, and if it is less than 38%, then I’ll consider your argument valid.
Bring back the Honda Fit.
You’re welcome, America.
No. I’ll buy a slower, less efficient, more expensive HR-V because AWD and because Crossover and then I’ll complain about costs.
—America
The Fit is Go.
I’m hanging on to mine for dear life. Thankfully I can afford repairs if necessary. I’ve loved since day one over 11 years ago.
https://www.motortrend.com/uploads/sites/5/2014/12/2015-Honda-Fit-EX-front-three-quarter-061.jpg
Want to solve affordability? Eliminate the stock markets and the drive for ever increasing profit margins
But then you’re left to solve the retirement issue, as no one can afford to stop working without their ever growing 401k, which will in turn collapse the job market as Grandpa works till the day he drops.
Honestly, it’s all a house of cards, and the stiff breeze is coming.
Then comes social security to save the retirees, oops, that runs out of funds in a matter of years. House of cards indeed, seems that the whole ideal of practically unlimited resources and stuff for everyone is hitting the brick wall of reality.
“No One Knows How To Make Cars Affordable”
Except manufacturers in China, Japan, Korea & Europe.
It’s all about building and offering smaller, simpler products – which Americans largely seem to be allergic to.
How will I ever impress the neighbours of my social status if I don’t have the BMW Land-Yacht Cadillac Canyonero Denali to prove it?