There’s been an underlying tension in the car market that has yet to be resolved, and it has to do with affordability. Carmakers have been producing better, more market-appropriate vehicles in the sub-$30k price range, yet, at the same time, affordability never seems to improve. How is this possible?
I get to look at data every day as part of my morning routine, so it takes a lot to knock me off my chair. Today’s Morning Dump will be all about data, and right up front is a surprising number that goes a long way to explain why the great, affordable cars we all want are likely to be even harder to access in the future.
A lot of this has to do with tariff policy, and the counter-balance to all of this tsuris was supposed to be that the elimination of penalties for violating fuel economy averages would make things easier for automakers. That might happen, but the government has also determined that doing so will result in a lot of job destruction and more expensive gasoline. A look at the 10-year Treasury and Fed policy shows no reason to expect people to get better rates, but many people are doing so. How?
Are you sensing a pattern here? The world, as always, is complex and contradictory. Tesla has continued to see a sales drop consistent with falling demand, so the board has responded by giving CEO Elon Musk billions of dollars.
I was off last week and am grateful to Thomas for filling in. The smart thing to do would be to take it easy for my first TMD back, but who wants to do the smart thing?
The Number Of The Day Is 92%
If you read The Autopian regularly, then you know that there is still a surprisingly large number of good, affordable new cars under $30,000. There’s the Chevy Trax, which is no longer a penalty crossover. The same is true for the completely competent Nissan Sentra. I have not driven the new Subaru Impreza yet, but it seemed like a great deal when it debuted.
I want to say there’s something all these cars have in common, though. Hmm… what could it be?
Oh, right, none of these cars are made in the United States. These cars are made in South Korea, Mexico, and Japan, respectively. If there’s an affordable car that you think is good, or are interested in, the chances are extremely high that it isn’t built in the United States. And by “extremely high,” I mean there’s a 92% chance that it’s built outside the country, as Cars.com pointed out recently:
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. Only two models in this segment are built in the U.S. – the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla – while some are also produced in Japan. While overall new car units grew 5.6% year over year in the first half of 2025, the entry-level segment lagged behind at just 3.9% growth in the same time period.
The United States has a high standard of living, high energy costs, a strong currency, and elevated labor costs relative to many of the other countries where affordable cars are produced. It’s why it makes sense to build the pricier cars here and the cheaper ones elsewhere.
Obviously, this is not sustainable, so there are a couple of ways this might change, and neither is net-good for consumers:
- Some production could shift here (Honda and Toyota seem to be going this direction), but that’ll almost certainly make car prices higher, especially with steel and aluminum tariffs in place.
- Automakers just stop selling sub-$30k cars.
That sounds dramatic, but there’s already evidence that this is going to continue to happen. A good example is Subaru, which has dropped base models faster than my kid dropped Icebreaker mints in our press car last week (sorry, Kia!). Just last week, Subaru announced it was dropping the Japanese-made base Impreza, which means the new model will start at $27,790, or $2,260 up from the base price in 2025. After taxes and fees, that’s likely a $30k+ car.
While automakers can eventually make changes to build more affordable cars in countries with lower tariffs, and trade deals might help, there’s simply not a lot of margin in cheap cars, and even a 10% increase in tariffs is going to make the math difficult.
In my mind, this is the best evidence yet of the negative impact of tariffs on consumers. There haven’t been a lot of huge price increases as automakers are doing their best to hold the line and keep buyers interested. While there’s been a general reduction in incentives, automakers like Ford are attempting to gain market share and, therefore, are actively discounting.
Could this be the year we finally get an Average Transaction Price above $50,000? Absolutely. Not by raising the prices higher on expensive inventory, but merely by reducing the volume of sub-$30k cars, which is exactly what happened during the last market shock.
Removing CAFE Penalties Could Make Gas More Expensive, Cost 450,000 Jobs
There’s a great bit that economist Paul Krugman was doing post-GFC (Global Financial Crisis) in which he suggested that America should just pretend that there’s an alien invasion coming so that the government could spend a bunch of money preparing for it. The invasion wouldn’t be real, of course, but merely a way to achieve economic stimulus via increased spending.
In 2020, there was a real crisis, and increased government spending seemed to avert economic catastrophe, though it did seem to suggest that alien invasions might be inflationary.
Most scientists and most governments have suggested that climate change is an existential threat, and the previous administrations passed a number of now-reversed laws to try and address it. The current administration doesn’t seem to believe that there really is a threat, and the current EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, is trying to undo a 2009 scientific finding that said that pollution from fossil fuels endangers the health and future of this country.
“To reach the 2009 endangerment finding, they relied on the most pessimistic views of the science. The great news is that a lot of the pessimistic views of the science in 2009 that was being assumed ended up not panning out,” Zeldin said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We can rely on 2025 facts as opposed to 2009 bad assumptions.”
[…]
In the nearly 16 years since the EPA first issued the Supreme Court-ordered endangerment finding, the world has warmed an additional 0.45 degrees Celsius (or 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit) to 1.4 degrees Celsius, according to climate scientist Zeke Hausfather.
“Both the scientific certainty around climate change and evidence of the dangers it is causing have grown stronger since 2009,” Hausfather said in an email. “There is no evidence that has emerged or been published in the scientific literature in the past 16 years that would in any way challenge the scientific basis of the 2009 endangerment finding.”
This seems bad to me. Not to get too political, but I’ve got a kid with asthma whom I would like to be able to live in a world where she isn’t at constant risk of being harmed in a freak 500-year flood that happens every year. I’d like her to be able to breathe the air outside.
But let’s pretend that the science isn’t clear and no one knows if millions of cars pumping greenhouse gases into the environment is really bad. What are the economic impacts of not addressing the threat of climate change? The good news is that the U.S. Energy Information Administration did some projections as part of its Annual Energy Outlook and tried to see what would happen if the Biden Era policies continued, and what would happen if they didn’t (which is what the current administration has achieved). As you can see in the chart above, in the “Alternative Transportation” case that the Trump White House is carrying out, gas prices go up.
Not immediately, of course. It takes a while for the changes to fuel economy standards to impact demand. Eventually, the mix of cars and the increase in fuel demand mean that demand goes up, which causes prices to go up. This is a somewhat simplistic view, and all sorts of things could happen, including a recession or the discovery of oil in the Rose Garden of whatever. This is an all-things-being-equal kind of calculation. (Of course, eventually, if the price goes high enough, demand for fuel-efficient cars will increase like it has in Europe, where fuel is pricey. I tend to be more optimistic about the adoption of hybrids and the like).
What if you don’t care about gas prices? What if you care about jobs? As CBS News points out, the report also doesn’t have great news there, either:
The EIA’s own data estimates that a future scenario — where Biden-Obama emissions standards are revoked — would lead to a loss of 450,000 jobs by 2035. Jobs would begin to rebound by 2045, but not enough to overcome the significant losses suffered in previous decades.
Peter Huether, senior transportation research associate at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, said in a statement, “Drivers would pay thousands of dollars more in fuel and maintenance costs over the life of a vehicle, and businesses could lose billions annually from higher trucking costs” as a result of the Trump administration’s deregulation.
“These costs would ripple through the economy, raising prices for everyday goods and undercutting job growth,” Huether said.
Well, that seems bad.
My longstanding belief with regard to all of this is that, hey, maybe you don’t believe global climate change is happening (it is), but the slow shift towards more electrified cars (hybrid, EREV, EV) would have an obvious local air quality benefit, which is good, especially for my kid. It would likely cause a drop in fuel prices, which is also good. And it would create more jobs, which ain’t bad, either.
The downside is increased inflation, but if done slowly and carefully, that’s probably less likely. There’s also an overcapacity risk, as in China, but even before the election, it seemed like automakers were revising timetables to avoid this.
More People Are Getting 0% Financing
The Federal Reserve has kept rates elevated for a while as conditions seemed to be consistent with the Fed’s current “dual mandate” of avoiding a big drop in the labor market and, at the same time, not overheating the economy and causing more inflation.
Up until a few days ago, that seemed to be a reasonable course. That’s when Cox Automotive economist Jonathan Smoke wrote about how, even with higher rates, people have been getting better financing deals:
The move up in bond yields to start the year contributed to interest rates on auto loans increasing. The outlook for average auto loan rates to come down significantly is similar to the outlook for the 10-year. The average consumer is likely out of luck for a dramatic improvement in affordability, especially with tariffs likely to push new vehicle prices higher.
However, average auto loan rates have been declining modestly over the last two months, with the most improvement occurring on new loans to consumers with good credit. And that’s where consumers can make a difference in what they can afford without any assistance from the Fed.
More aggressive financing offers are driving the improvement in new loans this summer. July has seen a higher share of new loans with 0% interest rates than has been the case in any month over the last three years. This change is a notable shift in auto credit following very low levels of 0% offers this spring, when the tariff-induced buying frenzy caused supply to tighten.
Is there a catch here? Of course, there’s a catch here. If you have good credit then you can get a good deal. If cars are already unaffordable to you, then they will probably continue to be unaffordable.
I mentioned up top that this was written in a specific world where the labor market was strong. We’re not in that world anymore and, in fact, maybe haven’t been in that world at all for a while. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found in a revision that job growth has slowed significantly over the last three months. That’s bad for the economy, but good if you want the Fed to cut rates. The current White House might not believe that climate change is real, but they also don’t believe those numbers are real, and fired the head of the BLS.
There is an unresolvable contradiction in all of this. The White House came in promising to lower inflation and is arguing that all this tariff stuff is increasing employment and that the economy has never been stronger. At the same time, it’s arguing that rates should be dropped, which you wouldn’t do if the former were true.
There’s something that Bloomberg‘s Joe Weisenthal wrote that’s been sticking with me lately:
So if you just think about the current state of the US economy, there’s something vaguely futuristic about it. A very tiny handful of people getting generationally wealthy (and powerful). A broad swathe of people seeing their personal balance sheets improve, because the stock market’s been so hot (you could argue that the stock market has become something of a privatized UBI for people fortunate enough to have bought in). And then the only areas of actual widespread jobs growth being in areas that are tied to aging and health, much of which is sustained by widening deficit spending.
What we’re not seeing is any kind of general expansion in activity across the economy.
A bad jobs report here or there is not the end of the world. They happen from time to time, and people freak out, and then forget about it. However the specific contours of this moment feel like a glimmer of a stranger, less comfortable future.
The Stock Market-as-Universal Basic Income thing is going to haunt me, as I know people in all three tiers here, and it feels extremely true.
Elon Musk Got $30 Billion
Tesla’s revised Model Y is fully available in China, and sales are still down there year-over-year. It’s early, I guess, but I don’t think there’s been a lot of evidence to suggest the Model Y is going to move the needle enough to overcome all of the company’s other challenges.
CEO Elon Musk is, maybe, the richest man in the world. This relies on Tesla stock remaining high and, also, a lawsuit being resolved that allows Musk to get the biggest paycheck in history. Both of those are in question, so the Tesla Board of Directors voted to grant Musk an interim stock grant worth about $30 billion.
Tesla Inc. approved an interim stock award worth about $30 billion for Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, a massive payout meant to keep the billionaire’s attention on the automaker as a legal fight over a 2018 pay package drags on.
The new agreement includes 96 million shares of the automaker that will vest if Musk continues to serve in the top post for another two years, the company said Monday in a regulatory filing. The restricted stock has an exercise price of $23.34, equal to the price in a prior compensation package from 2018.
Tesla said it didn’t want to wait for legal challenges to get settled, and needed to keep Musk “against the backdrop of the ever-intensifying AI talent war and Tesla’s position at a critical inflection point.”
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
If you want the truth, I’ve been on vacation for the last week and have, for some reason, been listening to a lot of old Mitski. Here’s “Liquid Smooth” off of her album Lush.
The Big Question
What’s the best sub-$30k new car right now?
Top photo: Subaru, depositphotos.com
*makes note to self* “…alien invasions are inflationary…”
It’s gonna be hard to discover oil under the Rose Garden now that it’s paved over.
I like the Trax/Envista, but not with their current engine/transmission, since it doesn’t strike me as a long-term-ownership design. If either vehicle was offered with a naturally aspirated, 1.8-2 literish, four cylinder engine (preferably a proven, off-the-shelf design w/o too much plastic, wet belts, etc…) it’d be a FAR more appealing proposition. W/the current, tiny, 1.2 liter Ecotec turbo, both cars seem very disposable.
Gah, the world is so depressing sometimes. Welcome back Matt. 😉
A fake alien invasion to unite the world in common cause. Wasn’t that Ozymandias’ scheme in the “Watchmen” comics?
I think so! But there has been a lot of chatter on the UAP/UFO/Aliens are real front over the last 5-7 years. Makes you wonder all sorts of things. Reagan suggested to Gorbachev that an alien invasion would end the cold war.
Think I’d rather face an alien invasion rather than failians that are destroying the world now.
We don’t even need it to be an alien invasion. We’ve already laid the groundwork for a war with Canada over fentanyl smuggling and unfair trade practices. Send in John Candy and Kevin Pollack! Where’s President Alda when we need him?
I have not read two more contradictory statements before written by you like these two.
To clarify, I do extremely believe Climate Change is real and happening, but even if you DIDN’T believe that, there are plenty of good reasons to pursue a green industrial policy.
Thank you for clarifying that. My reaction to reading what you wrote was much stronger than how I communicated it.
This is good clarification and the edit helps as well. I also read it the first time and was a bit baffled that you didn’t believe in climate change.
But I also read all of these articles and think, “wow, Matt can stack a whole lot of great analysis and writing into a few short morning hours every day” so I’m impressed you don’t need clarifications more often!
CAFE is kind of stupid though, especially the footprint rule that just made cars bigger 🙁
Japan has brand new cars for $7000 (kei cars), and Europe has brand new cars in the teens.
We need to accept the international UNECE standards.
CAFE is indeed stupid. I laugh when I see the Mazda CX-50. Its wheels are pushed all the way out to its haunches, requiring significant fender bulges/flares. I’ve always thought it is primarily a way to expand the car’s CAFE footprint just a little bit more so they can hit their fuel economy targets.
Edit to clarify: I think that improving fuel economy is a great thing and I’m impressed by modern hybrids. I just think the specific way CAFE is written is dumb and incentivizes the wrong things.
+1
The CX-50 does look pretty good that way, though. Just sayin’.
LOL you’re not wrong, it almost looks sporty – which is impressive for a family hauler.
Industry lobbyists and private equity groups in the USA will make sure that never happens. They want us overpaying on vehicles, and they want them to be expensive to repair so that the 2nd and 3rd hand market is eventually eliminated. Got to make sure you’re desperate enough to sign on that dotted line for a 96 month payment plan at 8% APR.
CAFE works. Automotive fleet averages pretty much exactly matches what is required by CAFE. When the requirement goes up automakers respond but only to the level required. In general US buyers will not pay more for fuel economy even when the fuel savings pay back the extra initial cost in only a 2-3 years.
Europe and Japan have different cars because they have very different driving environments AND fuel is much more expensive. $8 a gallon gas and heavily taxing fuels by engine size has a way of making people accept driving small hatchbacks. Absolutely outrageous parking costs give incentives for tony KEI cars that can be parked multiple high and in automated vertical parking garages
The interesting thing about cars is that they’re a product of where they’re made to be driven. When a country’s entire infrastructure is designed to make it easy for cars to get around, that results in an unchallenging environment where cars don’t have to try very hard. This manifested in the previous century in the form of cars that barely competed in packaging, chassis dynamics, efficiency or ease to store/park, but instead duked it out on size and features. You don’t need a cleverly packaged loading bay when your trunk is already large enough that a whole family’s luggage still slides around when you turn.
In terms of packaging alone, I’ve seen lots of bigger cars meant for the US market that have very inelegant solutions, with awfully intrusive humps for the wheel wells, shock towers or seat mechanisms where global alternatives feature flat cargo floors with little to no intrusion, clever cubbies and the like.
The same applies for how much our gas is subsidized, the lack of real market incentive to be efficient means the only way for that to actually happen is government mandates.
That EIA study is mostly useless. Its a philosophical argument, a line a logic taken to its furthest extreme. To create a prediction of significant economic impact and base it entirely on “all things stay the same” for the next 25 years doesn’t show anything about the real world. Markets REACT, even if nothing in the government changed from today, the market would still move and shift around. As gas prices increase, oil shale becomes more viable again as a source, suddenly and rapidly changing the supply market, impacting prices. And that is just one real world example we have seen before.
Yeah the only thing that study proves that either the people who produced it are idiots, or they decided the conclusion before they started and made the assumptions that would support said conclusion.
Either way it is complete trash and totally ignores the fact that a new administration will be in power well before the real doom and gloom they are predicting could occur.
Indeed.
I’ve mostly given up on making predictions, and I would have eaten it pretty badly had I made 25 year prediction on August 4, 2000. Like, upended in a year or so.
Mostly, I chart a course that tries to insulate myself from suffering if it does go sideways. My ethos of affordable, efficient, and reliable car has worked so far in the automotive sphere. Gas prices go up, it’s not an albatross around my neck. Economy hits the skids, well, at least I’m not paying through the nose with a huge car payment.
But whatever. Sometimes we gotta learn the hard way. Again.
The real reason for the death of the cheap car? Profit margins. When all your board does is base their bonuses and off of net profit of last quarter, of course you’ll kill off the cheap cars, terrible for the long term, but you’ll be on to your next golden parachute by then.
The last 30 years have demonstrated a huge shift in corporate mindset and investor mindset for sure. No longer is almost anyone interested in legacy, or creating for tomorrow. Investors want money today, boards want money today, etc. I agree with your assessment as a major portion of what has changed in the industry.
Automakers are not charities. Automakers go where the money is – as they SHOULD, the point of them isn’t to make cars, it’s to make money.
And the reality is that while people here seem to want to go on and on about this, the actual reality is that in the US, relatively speaking, nobody wants these cheap base model cars (and the people who say they do want to buy them used for even cheaper). For most people, a used example of the next model or two up is a much better fit. There simply is very little demand for these low-profit cars, and hasn’t been for eons. Back in the day, automakers were willing to lose money on cheap cars because they offset CAFE for the gas-guzzling vehicles they made tons of money on – so prices were low and incentives were huge on them. Footprint-based CAFE killed that stone dead. That they aren’t AS hairshirt as they once were is neither here nor there.
If what is posited here were true, the remaining cheap cars should be bases-loaded home run sellers. And they are NOT. At all. The cheapest car in the top 10 is the Chevy Equinox, which technically starts under $30K, but reality is nobody buys the base model, the ones that actually sell are more like $35K. The rest of the top ten go well up from there, with the BIG sellers, pickup trucks and the Model Y being well into the $40Ks and up and up.
It’s aggravating how many trim levels up one must go just to get heated seats. That’s really the only “option” that I care about, and I don’t want to get leather and a pano roof, etc, just to get them.
Hyundai used to be good about this (maybe they still are), my GF has a had a ’17 and ’20 Elantra “value edition”, which had heated, cloth seats and sunroof for around 21K.
Indeed – I loved that I was mostly able to spec my ’11 BMW the way I wanted it, but even the Germans are all about the “packages” and “trim levels” these days. Want that one thing? Well, you are buying $5K of shit you don’t want to get it. Which is actually how I ended up spending $5K more to get a ’16 M235i rather than an M-Sport 228i – I couldn’t get a decently equipped 228i without a headroom killing sunroof, but the M235i had the $0 “sunroof delete” option. Wankers.
And that’s if they don’t make you pay for it monthly. Though BMW has backed off from that in the US for now.
While the automakers do have a hand in this, the decline in sales for affordable vehicles can’t be ignored.
The Honda Civic sold 377k units in 2017. In 2024, it was 242k.
The Toyota Corolla sold 378k in 2016. In 2024, 233k.
Other than a handful of exceptions, affordable vehicle sales have declined.
I can’t fault automakers for following the trend, because corporations exist to make profit. Perhaps people should re-evaluate their consumption patterns, but blaming automakers for the choices of (supposedly) rational people is kind of like blaming McDonalds and Coca-Cola for people being fat. Eventually, you gotta look in the mirror.
I’d be curious as to how much RAV4 and CRV sales have increased during the same period. Pricing aside, I think fewer people actually want small sedans. Ponying up a few K more for an SUV most likely seems like a better value for a lot of people.
From 2017 -> 2024:
CR-V: 377k -> 402k
RAV4: 407k -> 475k
However those gains are arguably more at the expense of their midsize sedans, which have been priced right alongside those crossovers:
Accord: 322k -> 162k
Camry: 387k -> 309k
You’re not wrong in sentiment, but I think Civic sales went to the HRV and Corolla sales went to the Corolla Cross. The RAV4 is Camry-sized (in everything except length, grrr. Why can’t I have a Camry station wagon?)
That’s certainly one of several reasons. There are multiple things happening all at once. Add to that the fact that banks will give loans to damn near anyone for any length of time. Why borrow $30k for a base model when you can borrow $40k instead and get the top of line with heated seats and a sunroof? If you stretch it out to 84 months, it actually saves money every month!
I haven’t driven one, but it looks like the Kia K4 is a smash hit. I’m seeing them on just about every drive I take.
Yeah they’re everywhere
I was next to one the other day on the way home from work. Kind of odd looking, but in a good way. I appreciate that they tried something a little different, all in all I like it.
If they make the
wagonhatchback a hybrid at some point, I’d buy one without thinking. I enjoyed my last Kia (’16 Optima), and wouldn’t hesitate to go back to one again.There sure is a lot of doom and gloom obviously based on assumptions designed to give the desired outcome.
The only constant in the world is change. Just as Trump has made/is making some significant changes so will the next administration. That next administration will be democrat and I expect what ever meatbag they decide to run will see their victory as a moral obligation to “correct” the previous administrations wrong doing.
Surely the smart automakers playing the long game understand this. Sure some are definitely grateful that they won’t be paying fines or buying credits, looking at you Stelantis, which may give them an opportunity to get their house in order. Others will suffer with their historic primary profit center gone, looking at you Tesla. The smart ones know those fines will return and are planning accordingly, GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda. So no this isn’t going to result in wide spread job losses. Yes there will be some, but with the changes that will happen come Jan 2029 the recovery will start long before the expected bottom is predicted to occur.
Good to read an auto writer who follows Bloomberg!
I thought there were no cheap cars because Americans would rather drive a large used POS because we are all “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”
I think we’ve moved on to being temporarily embarrassed billionaires at this point, unfortunately
Does the Slate count?
It doesn’t exist yet and the only reaon its cheap is subsidies, so no.
What subsidies will apply to it? It was aiming for sub 20k with the tax rebate, but is now going to be 27k, which still counts as base price under 30. Are there other subsidies that still apply?
It’s more because its business case as a product falls apart when the subsidies are remoced, because you can easily get a Trax or Kicks or something at that price now with all their luxuries. A Maverick starts at $28k on paper if you need a truck bed. The $20k price was not only supposed to make up for the stripped features, but also make the inevitably low EV range acceptable.
There are 30 brand new Kia Souls within 15 miles of me all for UNDER $23K. Kia Souls are good cars.
No. They aren’t.
My kid has had one since 2015 and it has been great.
My family has had a 2012 Sonata, 2013 Elantra and 2016 Sorento that have generally been solid, comfortable, mostly dependable vehicles for us.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that all three (and much of the lineup) are head-and-shoulders above the industry in both engine failure rates and theft/vandalism risk – both are direct results of HyunKia decision making, engineering and cost-cutting.
The internet (me included years ago) have been saying that Hyundai and Kia weren’t good but they’re fine NOW every year since 2011.
For up to medium-term ownership or leasing, they’re solid vehicles that are comfy, well-featured for your dollar. Just know there’s likely some penny-pinching surprise lurking – especially since the past major scandals haven’t slowed down their sales. (It doesn’t have to be engine seizure like it was before, it can be as small as an undersized wire in the ABS system.)
Doesn’t mean folks can’t have a good experiences as we personally have, but the underlying values and decision-making doesn’t inspire confidence.
I own one, and while it has its shortcomings (stereo is terrible, there’s a bit more road noise than I would prefer) it carries a lot of stuff for the size is actually pretty fun to drive and gets good gas mileage.
I drove a Soul for a few years and it was one of my favorite cars. Tiny footprint but magically large on the inside.
Which just proves that there isn’t a lot of demand in the low price car segment, otherwise they would be flying off the lots as quick as they arrive.
I was pretty impressed with the Soul when we had ours. Sadly, it was involved in an accident and written off. Finding another in a pinch proved difficult, as they were as scarce as hen’s teeth in Canada.
My kids Soul has been a Rugby team bus and sober cab for nearly its entire 10 year life.
This just in: trickle up economics is bad for everyone except the top 5% or so of earners and yet many if not most of the bottom 25-50% continue to trip over each other to vote for it. It doesn’t work now, it didn’t work 20 years ago, and it didn’t work 40 years ago but huge swaths of our country live in an alternate reality.
I will, however, have a good belly laugh whenever gas prices inevitably skyrocket again and all of the people that voted for this are showing up on podcasts complaining about how they can’t afford to run their $70,000 trucks and how it’s all Biden’s fault. FAFO, baby. Ya’ll are going to be hit the hardest, unfortunately.
Then they’ll have the audacity to complain that there aren’t more efficient options after their culture war bullshit stalled EV and hybrid development. Speaking of which, the anti hybrid stuff is an absolutely ridiculous self own. In this day and age hybrids have virtually no downside. They’re faster, more efficient, and the technology is sorted enough at this point that the reliability isn’t a big concern.
You’re literally just getting a better overall vehicle, but if the fact that it’s even an option is an affront to your freedom to pollute or whatever then oh well. Enjoy your 14 MPG behemoth while you can! Do the same folks that were putting the “it’s my fault” Biden stickers on gas pumps have Trump ones at the ready?
Agree. They will always vote against their own self interest and for the next Cheeto jesus.
We now have 2 hybrids in the family, I’ll try to stop beating the hybrid drum but we love them. Anything new I buy will be EV or hybrid. I will consider hybrid options for my next used vehicle to replace my older Acura MDX.
I’ve recently been consuming media on the Honda Passport because I like them and will need a bigger car soon and some of the comments I’m coming across are grim. Most articles/videos/etc. inevitably bring up the terrible fuel economy and lack of a hybrid option and when they do it’s just piles of FUCK HYBRIDS FUCK FUEL EFFICIENCY ID RATHER GET 1 MPG THAN EVER HAVE TO DRIVE A SISSY ASS HYBRID NATURAL ASPIRATION FOR LIFE!!!! stuff.
Like…really? Ya’ll just love shooting yourselves in the dick repeatedly. I’m sorry a faster, more refined, and way more efficient car is some sort of indignity in your little mush brains.
I’m probably going to end up with another MDX, a ’17 or so. Prices are right and I like the size and features. Used prices on Highlander hybrids are insane, and honestly this is not a daily driven car. We use it mostly for road trips and vacations, maybe light towing and home store runs. Often 5k a year so the payback in better economy really isn’t there. Contrast with my Camry hybrid I run 25k a year and my daughter driving 75 miles a day in her Prius. Wife’s Corolla gets driven little, is paid for and she still loves it.
4runner bros are like this. Whenever anyone comments that the fuel economy isn’t great, asks if 12mpg is “normal”, or brags about averaging over 20 on a road trip, the bros always jump out of the woodwork “durr durr durr …gas mileage…should’ve bought a Prius”.
The other one is “it’s about the smiles per gallon, not miles per gallon”. Dude, it’s a slow ass heavy SUV, not a big-block Chevelle. Nothing “fun” about driving a 4Runner.
I see this too. “You didn’t buy it for fuel economy” – well no shit but excuse me for being interested in averaging high teens over mid teens MPG.
And of course “should’ve bought a Prius” like I’m going to take a Prius places my Sorento couldn’t go.
Same folks who like to post sometimes made-up pictures of electric cars being charged with a generator like it’s some gotcha. Wow, somehow uncommon edge cases magically negate everything.
It will always be this way until the Darwin Awards cull the remaining idiots from the gene pool. I, for one, am not holding my breath for that exigency to occur during what I have left on this planet.
I’ve just arranged my life such that I drive so little that I don’t care what my cars get for fuel economy. Though the sorts of cars I like tend to do “well enough”. Gas could be $10/gal and I wouldn’t particularly care. <shrug>
I like the idea of hybrids, but nobody makes one I want.
Different use cases friend. I love the hybrid for a daily (I can run to the market up the road and back almost fully on battery). That said I also miss a V8 in my life – I also don’t want to feed it the 25k I drive a year. Driving that much on one car economy, durability and mtc costs are key – hence Camry.
Freedom. What works for me may not work for you, I’m glad we both have options. I’m looking at a toy or two to fill these needs for me as well.
Use cases are adjustable if you try hard enough.
I’m an engineer. I had a trio of (maybe not cool) cars before my daughter was born in 2005. In the last decade I have tried to justify to myself buying a 928, a ’78 LTDII Coupe (like I had in high school), myriad Miatas, an X1/9. I always seem to back out.
I have first dibs on a ’90 ZR1 Corvette and am promising myself I won’t do that this time. My partner may just have to suck wood this time.
I see no reason to give up cool cars just because you have a kid. Spurred on by the fact that a good friend of mine had as his ONLY car an NA Miata from the time he bought his kid as an infant until said kid went to high school. In Maine, btw. Sourced a JDM passenger side factory airbag shutoff switch for it.
Sigh, the one I miss was my ’94 SHO 5 speed. The baby seat did not fit, it had already suffered a deer strike and the dash was cracked (which broke my soul). I sold the V8 ’96 Tbird to dad, and refused the offer to buy it back a few years ago. I traded in the XJ on a 4.0 WJ I drove for over a decade.
I’ve flirted with buying Miatas and such for over a decade, it just seem something else always comes up. I refuse to live a fully financed life, at times to my detriment.
There is a happy medium in all things. I don’t mind borrowing money, but I hate paying interest, so I pay it back as quickly as makes sense. But it’s nice to be to the point in life where I don’t need to borrow money to buy cars if I don’t want to. Wish I could say the same about my new house though. Sigh. Cars are chicken scratch compared to houses.
It is a blend of uses, The RX we use for camping gets maybe 18 premium, the toy Del Sol over 35 and the Hyundia hybrid over 45. Last 2 are regular petrol so cheaper to run too. The joy of the RX is I just don’t overly care about it as a car. It does what it does well cause it is a Toyota, dents, dirt, some gravel trial roads: meh. PS: there is an interesting book called $20.00 per gallon and the author explores the results of same as the pricing increases. PPS: Europe has it correct. Tax the shit out of it so that the playing field is level for other modes of transportation.
CAFE was and is the dumbest possible way to increase efficiency. It only affects ONE aspect, the efficiency of the vehicle itself, while doing nothing to influence how the vehicle is used and other lifestyle choices.
The right answer is tax the crap out of fuel, and ideally tax the crap out of excessive automotive choices. Nobody should be commuting to work in an F-OneFiddy unless they really, really, really need to. And as a bonus, the tax is directly related to consumption, and provides revenue that can be used for alternative transportation options.
For our daily driver’s I’ve been buying only HEVs or PHEVs for over a decade.
Do you mean “trickle down” economics?
I figured it was implied. I prefer to refer to it by what it actually is in some sort of feeble attempt to get the people that vote for it to reconsider…thus, “trickle up”.
I also like the original name of voodoo economics because it sounds appropriately menacing and implies that in order to believe it you need to have magical thinking….
About the time I bought my first hybrid (gen2 Prius) I was disappointed that the tech was almost exclusively being used for efficiency over fun. The only car I remember at the time which used the hybrid for performance was a mid-2000s Honda Accord where the hybrid was based on the larger V6 – got 15% better mpg than the I4, 25% better mpg than the V6, and had a decent bump in horsepower and torque while only being about 150lbs heavier.
My Prius was a great car but I am glad hybrids have evolved recently to match or exceed the performance of the “standard” spec versions instead of being the punish yourself for the environment version.
So much this. Hybrids would probably be standard across the industry if not for the rep generated by the anemic Prii of past generations.
Possibly, I get some of the hate for the first gen – it was a weird little car for 2x the price of the Echo that only got 10mpg better milage – but I think most of the people who hate on Prii have never lived with one.
Our 2007 was an excellent car. Yes, it accelerated like a mid-90s minivan but it had great seating for front and rear passengers, had way more cargo capacity than it should have, and over the course of almost 175k miles it averaged 41mpg with no real maintenance or repairs beyond oil, brakes, and tires.
You know what’s a smash hit with Taxis in Europe?
Corolla Touring (wagon).
A hybrid that fits 4 adults, can take a family’s luggage, gets smashingly good fuel economy, and has instant-torque off-the-line for urban traffic needs.
Can’t have that here but Toyota will happily sell you a $70,000 Tundra for $60,000 on a totally normal 7 year loan
The expected counter-argument to this is “businesses and markets are rational, so they’ll choose whatever technology will ultimately be cheapest.” Which historically has carried some truth. Companies largely try to reduce their energy costs, and higher efficiency makes good business sense. So even leaving out the (very real, and very important) discussion of anthropogenic climate change, the idea is that companies would take the most efficient path because it will be the most profitable.
But as with so many of our current issues, modern businesses have no interest in being sustainable (in a business or environmental sense). Instead, they are seeking out the maximum profit extraction in the shortest period, with an eye toward the next quarter.
I work in the robotics industry, and we have a product that increases life by 3X compared to the existing robots, at a cost of 20% more. The problem is every single purchaser at manufacturers is using a 2 year ROI/depreciation calculation, so it’s not “worth it” to them to get a six year life because that’s further out than they’re looking.
The problem is we are well into the realm of diminishing returns. A 4cyl 1.5l turbo Accord with a CVT does get fuel economy than the old 2.2L 5spd automatic Accord – but it costs a whole lot more upfront, is nowhere near as reliable, and costs a WHOLE lot more to fix when it breaks. That is the case across the industry at this point.
Short-sightedness is of course another big, if related, issue. Nobody is thinking about what that Accord is going to be like to own in 10 years. Most new car buyers aren’t going to keep it that long.
I would argue that a very large part of that problem is the regulations involved because that extra fuel economy is really just on paper.
Not that the 1.5L turbo isn’t more fuel efficient but the difference is negligible in real world driving. When your cars are weighing 4-5K lbs those tiny engines spool up the turbo very quickly costing you in fuel more than the older 2.2L did. But at least the test result gave you the CAFE numbers you need to not pay the gas guzzler tax even if we end up using more gas.
I have a 2016 Boxster with the 2.7L flat 6. Prior to that I had a 2006 VW GTi with the turbo 2.0 and the Boxster gets better fuel economy all day (note that both of these vehicles encourage more spirited and fun driving so the direct comparison is not in driving styles that attempt to maximize fuel economy but is likely closer to real-world driving styles you see day-to-day).
I agree completely, it’s “teaching to the test”, not the real world. Though one of the reasons manuals are going away is automatics are much easier to make conform to the test.
I am not surprised at all that the smaller, lighter, 10 years newer Boxster got better fuel economy than your GTI. But it probably doesn’t get better fuel economy than the ’17 GTI that I had. Though it would be interesting to compare the flat-6 to the flat-4 turbo Boxster.
*Laughs in global financial crisis*
Even if that were true, environmental impacts are external to the company and they have always tended to prioritize screwing the environment to save a buck.
Without Elon, who would come up with brilliant napkin sketches, like a dumpster on wheels? No, they can’t survive without that.
I hate him.
That said, without him Tesla stock tanks. TSLA’s stock price is dependent on whatever baloney he’s saying/selling. Stockholders all take a BIG haircut if the price is based on the company’s merits as a car company.
Bought a 2024 base Impreza hatchback in November. Once I got used to to not having a manual, (right hand will still look for a stick to put it in first while waiting at a stoplight), I found it to be an all around very good car, even somewhat enjoyable to drive. Was just below 25k including transport to dealer.
That’s a good deal!
The same dealer has 2025 in stock with a $2.4k discount, for just under $24k right now. https://www.mcgovernsubaru.com/new/Subaru/2025-Subaru-Impreza-newington-nh-f5a85453ac18208288e6794c4afaa986.htm
Cheap new cars have been going extinct for a while. The main reason why this is the case is tariffs and bad regs, in particular the chicken tax and the footprint rule, which both predate Trump becoming president.
I want cheap cars made in the USA, however the best way to get that is for US based automakers to have competition in the US market. All our pickups are massive and too expensive because small pickups that are common in other countries are not allowed to be sold here without a 25% tariff, and thousands of dollars of fines per vehicle if they do not meet completely unrealistic MPG standards brought to you by the footprint rule.
Frankly it doesn’t make sense for foreign automakers to set up a US production line for X vehicle which could end up being a flop and it’s not like it’s cost effective to utilize said US production line to sell to other countries.
When the next administration comes to power put on the pressure not to just repeal the new tariffs, but the old ones like the Chicken Tax as well.
Cheap cars have been regulated out of existence. All the garbage required to be put in cars today have made cheap cars illegal.
Honda Civic Hybrid is a really good option, just right in the border under $30K.
Probably a hybrid in the package you want.
I’ve done pack swaps in very old ones. A Lexus RX I did a pack swap in, the woman lives nearby. 6 years later and she says her mechanic says battery is strong as ever.
So you can get 40mpg in a crossover, 50mpg in a sedan or hatch. Even “cheap” cars don’t feel cheap anymore. For most people, long term TCO and reliability matters.
The Corolla Cross Hybrid starts with an MSRP of $28,495. Given the way it likely holds its value and the cost of ownership, it would be hard to get a better deal.
Musk went political with an administration that is anti-EV and demand dropped for the cars. You see those stickers saying “I bought it before he was crazy”. Tesla is losing in most markets to China where not tariff protected. The future for them is grim.
Ford Maverick.
Incredibly compelling at 19,999 when introduced. Still pretty dang good at 28k these days.
If Trump’s tariffs stick around, that 28K price won’t.
Which ones? Lol
The one that started on August 1st! Or was it July 1st? Oh, wait, no, maybe October?
I wish I could fail like Elon.
Board of Directors: You’re extracurricular activities and failure to focus on your job has caused a massive drop in sales, loss of reputation, and erosion of customer loyalty. Here’s a billions of dollars. Keep up the good work.
If you’d achieved 1/1,000,000th of what he has, you’d probably get some leeway too.
FIFY
I was going to respond with “what? Be born into incomprehensible wealth?” but this works as well
You mean “if you were 1/1,000,000th as slimy as he is.” Stupid autocorrect am I right?
It’s a no win situation for them. On the one hand, he is singularly responsible for everything working against them. On the other, the moment they ditch him they lose their meme-stock antigravity superpower.
Well when the board of directors includes your brother, son of Rupert Murdoch, and private equity goons, it makes it easy to continue the scam
Well I guess that settles the question of if the board is ever going to reign in Musk, or demand he actually work at Tesla.