Americans are paying more than ever for cars. Cheap models are disappearing
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/16/business/car-prices-affordability-nissan-versaOpen linkView original on reddthat.com498
Comments163https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/16/business/car-prices-affordability-nissan-versaOpen linkView original on reddthat.com
- Make car dependant infrastructure for every single city or town
- Refuse to innovate, build only "luxury" models
- ????
- Profit
Similarly with housing. Why make cheap starter homes when you can make so much more with “Luxury” homes and condos.
And yet use the same cheap materials in the "luxury" ones that you would have used in the cheap ones anyway!
I follow some home inspectors who post videos from their new home inspections, and holy crap the things they find are ridiculous. Like, construction companies should lose their licenses bad.
I visit some partially built homes from time to time, and recently saw one just after it had been inspected. On one wall, on the insulation, the inspector had scrawled STUD? In red felt.
The stud was completely missing from the wall. It was just an empty frame filled with insulation. You’d think someone would have noticed earlier during construction, but obviously the actual contractor had just let the day labor go to town and never bothered to review their work before inspection.
A lot of times, it's the contractor cutting corners and hoping no one notices.
lol, that is 100% every australian apartment built in the last 15 years. the window frames are plastic and the cladding is combustible... but it's got Italian tiles and "European appliances" so it's an "executive suite". that will be $1.5million fuck you very much.
Similar to literally every market that involves 'things', as we transition from failing liberal capitalism to horrifying technofascist neofeudalism (aka cyberpunk dystopia).
The next step is... well they won't lower the luxury prices, everything becomes renting, loaning, etc, even further and harder... untill you end up with bundled subscription plans / leases on a diverse array of physical things, as we currently have with bundles of online services.
We literally going to transition to a subscription based model for just being alive.
... unless enough people actually do something effrctive about it.
Other wise, the K shaped economy becomes a === shaped economy. You're either on top, or you're not, and you're basically treated as a kind of cattle; raised, milked, then expended whenever it is most profitable to do so.
Isn't that just health insurance?
Yes, that's true, but I meant more like uh...
The Disney+ life supscription is partnered with Starbucks, which is also partnered with Amazon Whole Foods and Trader Joes, and Verizon, and Subaru and GM.
The Netflix life supscription is partnered with Costco, Cox, and McDonalds, Chevy and Toyota.
The HBO Max life supscription is partnered with Walmart, ATT, Honda and Ford, ... Cluck'in Bell, fucking whatever.
And then also some kind of alliance type structure with various regional or national landlords/land developers.
Like, uh, roughly the idea of a Japanese Keiretsu, or a Korean Chaebol, but kind of inverted, applied much more thoroughly to the consumer side, than to the finance/internal corporate structures.
So yeah, you just pick one of those three life subscription plans, they all have various tiers, etc, and you... well you rent or lease or finance basically everything.
Thats how the idea of a kind of Corporate Citizenship will start, something like that.
That's my nightmare/prognostication.
It won't be based around like, families of business that define your employment paths, as exists in much more uh, 'classic' cyberpunk, I guess.
It'll be oriented around consumption, getting things, because... practically no one will even have 'real' jobs, having a career will become a defining marker of being born into an upper crust corpo elite class of some kind, the rest of us proles will just be shuffled between gig work, retail jobs, jail, prison, military, etc.
I gotcha. Hell, we've been there before. The company towns essentially owned every aspect of the lives of the people that lived there.
Yep.
I guess maybe a less verbose way to say it would be:
Company towns, but...! Everything is computer!
It cost nearly the same to make a luxury unit as a stripped down one. Most of the cost is labor. Spend 5 k in fancier materials and get 50k for the unit.
There's a difference between "cheap" and "inexpensive." Mcmansions are cheap.
People wanted those mcmansions and rebuilds jack up prices. Now those massive suburban mcmansions are getting old in the tooth and no one wants to buy them. They are realizing they need to build smaller homes finally. We'll probably see more townhomes with shared structures (walls/roofs).
Before they were building mcmansions and charging a fortune for them. Now they're building sardine cans and charging a fortune for them. Much better.
Don't forget the government cutting funding for affordable housing projects.
Amateur hour, my government funds 'affordable' housing projects that cost 300 grand and immediately turn into overpriced rentals.
At least housing is actually being built, but I know what you mean. Theres no real affordable housing near me and the wait list for what little is available has been closed due to budget cuts.
I recently read an article about "affordable" apartments being constructed an hour or so away. 900 SF, one br and bath, $2200, in a right to work, $7.25/hr minimum wage state.
that sounds cheap to me. where i live a new 1bd/1bath will be closer to 3000-3500
crappy leaky roach filled basement apartments go for 2200
What's minimum wage? These are "low income."
20 bucks an hour
minimum wage isn't low income. most people in low income housing make well above mimimum wage.
stop conflating these two things. also, just because you think it's too expensive doesn't mean it isn't. other people have different price thresholds than you. i know people making half what i make paying way more rent than I am, because that's what they've chose to do because they believe they 'need' to live very expensive places. plenty of people are willing to vastly overpay for 'new' housing, as it's an amenity. just like in my city you pay an extra $1000 to live near a subway stop and if you go 1km away, the rent is way cheaper. or that if you want pets the rent goes up $500+
Thanks to the invention of debt, we can continue taking from the poor what they don’t even have!
They do have it. It's the value they generate while working. That's what we've always taken, regardless of the exact financial tool used.
Sorry I didn't get that, did you say you wanted an even larger pickup truck?
Can you jack up the front so I can't see and put a bar on it so I can kill anyone I hit? Thanks.
We're way ahead of you! Our engineers have worked tirelessly to come up with an extra flat front that maximises impact with unsuspecting pedestrians
Can I get it angled to ensure they're swept under? I don't want to risk them hitting my 1' of windshield
Even they aren't selling them as much in the US any more. You don't really see many new Accords or Camrys any more, you see CR-Vs and Rav4s.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster. You can only artificially prop up your domestic market for so long. You'll inevitably fall behind even further on innovation with this approach.
Might be the first to make a CoPilot or ChatGPT powered car though.
Look, the Chinese EVs are a literal trade weapon. The other points I agree on. But China has subsidies on EVs even when sold to other countries because they aim to put competitors out of business globally. Otherwise they'd just be subsidizing EVs for domestic use.
So I can't blame them for tariffing those. But the solution is to invest heavily in domestic EVs, not to keep running with internal combustion...
The US heavily subsidizes its auto industry. Why is this being raised as a point against China? It's not China's fault that American auto companies use their subsidies to line their pockets instead of creating cheaper and better vehicles.
And countries that have auto industries put tariffs on US cars too. They also don't get nowhere near as much in subsidies per car sold abroad. And for the EV subsidies, foreign EVs were also eligible.
China also tariffs foreign cars heavily and always has.
Have you been to China recently? Seems like all the new cars sold there are EVs. They're not just dumping them on the export market.
If they were just looking to replace ICEs with EVs domestically, they'd have subsidies for domestically bought EVs. They instead subsidize production, regardless of where it'll be sold. Chinese manufacturers can afford to produce at a huge loss right now and still make a profit.
The scooters there are all electric. It makes it scary to walk on the sidewalks because they'll ride up on them and they are so quiet you suddenly realize someone is about to run into you. lol
From what I've seen it wasn't specifically a global trade weapon. It was more a side effect of central government planning.
There was just a government program to encourage electric car manufacture to boost local manufacturing. They over saturated the domestic market and are now dumping the cars internationally.
Sure China is not some moral or benevolent actor in all this. At the very least they were forward thinking enough to subsidize the future of automobile transport. Some degree of protectionism may be warranted but the goal should be to catch up with China in the meantime, not double down on fossil fuels.
They're doing what we should be doing. Subsidizing a sustainable alternative.
Canada and Europe have already let Chinese vehicles in. Canada reportedly wants to make an indigineous EV through sharing of Chinese technological knowledge. Wonder how long the US will hold out.
So what that Chinese subsidize their EVs. The US subsidizes most of their industry.
It's really tiring for people to say what about China doing X, which the US already does in spades.
And most US goods are similarly tariffed elsewhere. What's your point?
We have been propping u domestic car manufacturers since they started making cars domestically. Pretty rich for a "capitalist free market" if you ask me. I forget we don't get to be part of socialist America if we aren't billionaires...
I saw something about being approved for "up to 100k" for a car loan. 100k for a car? Man, this country is fucked.
And their beds are spotless because they are used just for regular driving with 1 or 2 people. You could do that with a compact car.
But how else can I stick far out into the aisle in every parking lot and inconvenience everyone around me??
I'm told that Americans only want big expensive cars but for some reason the government felt the need to slap 100% tariffs on small inexpensive Chinese cars.
Because Chinese cars are priced at a loss to corner the market and put competition out of business.
Meanwhile VW and other manufacturers make smaller more affordable cars, but they don’t sell them here.
That's because the goal isn't to sell you a car, it's to saddle you with a $50K debt obligation they get to sell off.
Exactly. If they were incentivised to encourage the best vehicle for the customer they'd be talking most people into a subcompact or minivan
nobody buys them. sales for such vehicles are tiny compared to larger cars.
it doesn't make sense to sell subcompact cars if you only sell 5000 of them a year.
BYD and Xiaomi profit from their EVs.
Car prices were on the rise long before the tarrif crap. Yes the tariffs continue to make it worse, but this was a trend already! As long as people are willing to pay 50 grand for a rav4 with leather seats they will continue to pump their numbers up. I know VERY few people that drove a car more than 10 years old, their afraid it will break down on them when the reality is their newest 700$ /mo POS techno trash on wheels will be dead long before my 87 gives up the ghost.
The symbol for this are the run down ranch houses near me that look like dumps but they have a $70K truck in front.
Trump tariffs combined with the policy to 'make in America and buy American' is going as well as predicted then.
Except American cars still source more than half of their parts outside the country. On top of that they are made far worse than foreign cars.
As soon as someone releases a small electric pickup truck, I'm grabbing one and holding on to it as long as possible. It's gotta have LFP batteries, though. Those last a long time.
Slate is making one that should be out in 2027. Ford was supposed to be planning one, but considering how they’ve been flailing, i doubt we will ever see it.
Not holding my breath for Slate. Alpha wolf has been on the same boat for twice as long with it's "affordable retro EV trucks and cars" not one has hit production in 10 years since they announced it.
I'm on the same boat, though I have a lot more requirements on what I want that electric truck to NOT include. I want a proper work truck that's user serviceable - not a computer on wheels. Untill that, I'll stick with my -07 diesel Navara.
Except for a few specific models, battery longevity has been fine for a while now.
LFP batteries have about double the life cycle of NMC batteries. Both will last for thousands of cycles but if I'm looking for maximum longevity, I'm definitely going with LFP.
At this point import a Kei Truck and you'll have that forever.
Tbh i don't think i will ever buy a new car. New doesn't even mean "good" or "reliable" at this point, just a warranty and that they don't know for sure what or how much is going to break in 10K miles. Its literally paying more to be a beta tester.
At least after a couple years third party techs have mostly figured out where the manufacturer cheaped out and how to fix it for less than the dealership wants.
Another benefit to buying a used car is that if it were to have any glaring issues they would have all been revealed. Think of the first owner as a prolonged stress test.
That or they finally got tired of all the problems.
Could be. But that's why you need to thoroughly go over the car, test drive it and maybe even have a trusted mechanic inspect it before you buy it. Same can be said about a used phone, car, bike, whatever. Do your homework before money changes hands.
I'm sorry, what do people do with a shitbox car they bought new? They sell it.
No need to apologize, what do people do with a perfectly fine car that doesn't suit them anymore for whatever reason? They sell it.
I just want a small car I can work on myself. 30 years ago, I could maintain my own car, do some shadetree mechanics...
But all cars today are meant to be black boxes. All need proprietary tools and computers to do almost anything.
Dear Santa, could I have a 67 camaro.
I have a gearless (fixie) bike since last Summer, I don't even have a manual for it, not do I really need one.
Before that I had a fancy e-bike which nobody but the manufacturer could fix. Even bike shops would warn "We can fix the mechanical parts but we don't touch the electronics, if it fails while we fix it, it's on you." and basically saying they would prefer not to fix it.
Now my bike is so basic I don't care and I think it's even safer from potential robbers.
So... in my own experience, less is more! It's less maintenance, it's less money, it's less temptation for others, and ironically enough in this specific case it's even healthier. I use it everyday, from Sunny spring to rain and snow, it just works.
Simplifying is empowering.
I'm very pro simplifying, but you'll take my freewheel from my cold dead legs. The only part of my bike that I struggle to repair is I still can't true a wheel despite trying many times. Well also a broken frame
Ah, pesky tiny ball bearings but honestly it's not so tricky, mostly patience. Also I did welding workshops so naively confident I could actually make a frame, not a good one though! I'm a bit too lazy for all that though so... now I just ride :D
FWIW nobody should use a fixie rather than a freewheel unless they absolutely genuinely want to... because the first moment of inattention initially, being a bump on the road or just a turn they'll fall over the bike. After a few cold sweats though then it becomes automatic again, no thinking, just riding, and it's genuinely fun.
I'll take more complex computers over trying to get KE-Jetronic to run properly any day of the week lol
Honestly, things have gotten easier for me with the extra computers. Usually if something electrical is wrong, there's a code for it. Can't blindly trust the code of course, but it's usually a good place to get started when doing diagnostics.
Kias just a few years ago were copies of late 90s cars at a price reflecting that and low complexity making them efficient to maintain. Take a Kia now, it's just as expensive as everything else and will be scrapped in 8 years when one of the $2000 proprietary led assemblies fails.
hugs Civic si
you'll get all the motors and transmissions you need, widdle guy.
My last car was a civic si. It was a great car.
There was a whole line of outstanding Civic models for a while there. I miss the Del Sol.
Paying massive tariffs could be part of the problem.
Similar to how China let Tesla in to force its domestic market to compete (Which now makes the best EV's in the world) America should do the same. Let BYD or Xiaomi sell cars in the states, Musk and co. can then compete or lose to the Chinese. With musk's close ties to the admin I doubt this will happen.
Google "BYD slave labor"
I see genocide gets ignored for cheap cars.
If you can get people to stop buying from China, Seize the means of production, and then live a materially worse life I'm all for it. We currently have a bunch of people crying about RAM prices stopping them from playing the latest triple AAA video game so I doubt that will happen
Most American cars are made outside of the USA, and most countries that supply cars and parts and under tariffs from King Dingus so yeah, cars are fucking expensive NOW. They were already trending higher.
Some parts may be made outside the US but many of the assembly plants and motor manufacturing are in the US.
For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_factories#North_America
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Honda_assembly_plants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_in_the_United_States
Where do you get your steel?
I don't buy much steel.
No, but car manufacturers do.
Hurray! The GDP is saved!
All hail the supreme leader Trump. Yes, he maybe a pedo, rapist and multiple convicted felon, as well as a failed businessman, but he really represents the American dream........
The 1965 dodge dart cost $2153 when it released. That's $22,004.55 according to an inflation calculator I found online. The dart is a badass car, imaging bying a sick muscle car today for less than 25 grand.
The charger 2 door, which is the closest dodge comparable to the dart. It starts at $54,995. Over double.
I realize dodge's sales model is different and the market itself likely couldn't be compared. But how the hell are we paying over double for vehicles that fit similar market slots? We are so fucked.
Edit: Dodgers to Dodge's. Seriously autocorrect just doesn't work.
You can get a modern car with similar performance.
1965 dodge dart as a muscle car so the V8 package 235 HP Curb weight 1456 kg (3210 lbs) About $2600 depending on package. 0-60 6.9 seconds 1/4 mile in 15.5 second
About 26k in todays cash
Toyota GR86 228HP Curb weight about 2900 pounds RWD
0-60 5.4 14 second quarter mile
Around 30k
What used to be top of the line is now a daily driver.
Safety and environmental regulations are what’s making new cars expensive compared to inflation. Even without the luxury bump in price.
New cars are also a literal order of magnitude more reliable. Most new cars have spark plug changes at 70k cars from then pretty much needed a full engine rebuild.
Counterpoint: Every single manufacturing method for these is easier, cheaper and more efficient now. It should not be more than double the price, mildly more expensive sure, in reality the Charger is a low end luxury muscle, but it is not that much more expensive after inflation to make, no way.
Yeah man.
Those old cars were dirt cheap for the auto companies to assemble. That is why every environmental and safety regulation was fought tooth and nail.
Swap your own drums for disc brakes, then makes those abs. You can see those prices for aftermarket parts. Now do that for just about everything in a modern car.
They are just far more complex than anything today. There recently made increases are somewhat different, but real costs were increased
My car manual recommends new spark plugs @ 90k
Cars today are simply not more reliable. I have drug a 48 Willy's out of a barn that had been sitting for decades, adjusted the points and drained the fuel and put in new. Marvel mystery oil down the plug holes and bar by hand to ensure not seized and cleaned out the carb and she fired right up. Old cars may require more frequent service due to old mechanical systems, but they will far outlive anything made in the last 20 years. Automobile reliability peaked between 1990 and 2005 or so, anything made after is over complex (think can bus, one frayed wire and ur cars whole network goes down and immobilized you) and anything earlier still needs frequent attention yet very robust in design. Long service intervals =/= reliability, their just making them disposables after 100k miles now. See: low tension piston rings, cvt transmissions, "lifetime" fluids (no such thing...), carbon issues on intake valves and engine internals from direct injection and overstated service intervals to keep projected ownership costs down, oh I could go on and write a book about how new cars ain't shit.
Sure maybe an inline motor from the 40-50's with a manual transmission, drum brakes and manual steering was more reliable. Basically an old school farm tractor.
I think you are looking at survivability bias. The old cars left running are reliable, the unreliable ones were scrapped long ago.
Ease of repair is not the same as reliability.
My new cars are toasters. I change the oil, rotate the tires and swap out brake pads. When things go 'wrong' they continue to drive. A bad o2 sensor goes into an error state but the car still drives. It doesn't just stall at each and every stop.
My 2012 nissan blows the doors clean off myold 76/77? pontiac lemans.
In the ~100k I had my Nissan I have not had to rebuild my fuel injection system but in the ~100k I had my mechanically simple Pontiac I had the carb rebuilt 3x times, and it should have been 4. Carb rebuilding was regular maintenance and it pretty much required to have a functional car. That isn't the constant changing of gaskets required to keep it from dripping oil or blowing smoke.
It had a rock solid 305. It was much more reliable than any of the cars I got in the 80s when the transition happened to computers. I had an engine fall out of my 85 pontiac. It ran so rough in winter it rattled the engine mounting bolts out. I did have to replace the fuel injection system on my mid 90's GM, but that car pretty reliable.
I got flashback to fixing fucking vacuum leaks. God damn why not just replace ALL the lines , still not it ? FUCK!
I traded a bus and reader that will tell me what is wrong for a chiltons and vacuum system.
I loved being young. I loved the freedom of going where I wanted when I wanted. I loved gas so cheap I would just take a drive to clear my head. The old cars were finicky and required constant attention. They just weren't build to last more than 10 years.
CVTs can last over 100k if you do fluid changes about every 30k miles or so.
Yes they can, but most (let's use Subaru for example) said they had life time fluid despite having a replaceable filter, as they don't give a shit if it grenades at 100k miles cuz if it's out of warranty you have to buy a transmission from them! They later back tracked and said oh yea actually u should service your transmission. And this isn't just a cvt issue, bmw was doing the filled for life crap back in the early 2000s. Automatic transmissions are hydrolic devices, and any hydrolic device is only as good as it's hydrolic fluid.
I have a Subaru and in America they say that but outside America they recommend 30k. I blame the dealership network here for this shit.
Whole networks of rebuilt transmission dealers used to exist for the constant need to swap transmissions in older cars. 100k was about the limit for older transmissions as well.
The fact people are complaining that CVT's last only a 100k says how much the reliability windows has shifted.
Ikr, people saying old cars were better are smoking crack. Cars back in the day started rusting after the 2nd or 3rd year of ownership and only had 5 digit odometers because most people got a new one when they got to around 70k.
When I look at used cars I don't even look for rust the foot-wells anymore.
Airbags don’t cost $30000 to add to a car. Seatbelts have been around since the 1960s.
Technology like this gets cheaper as it becomes a commodity. Look at how cheap flat panel tvs have gotten.
Manufacturers like VW make affordable cars that meet safety standards — they just don’t sell them in the US because Americans like to waste money on giant SUVs and trucks that they don’t really need. The profit margins are much higher.
Your trying to make a point but just made a bunch of stuff up.
The a low priced car in Europe is the Dacia Spring at 17k euros approximately 20kUSD . It's max speed is 80 mph and max range is around 110 miles. Its less expensive than a US car but isn't cheap.
The 2026 Nissan Sentra is 23.5k. It's $3.5k more than one of the lowest priced EU cars. This would be a general use car that can be use in nearly all markets of the US.
The average US salary is 66k the average EU salary is 46k. The slightly higher salary would make the 2 cars on average equivalent to US and EU citizen.
Cars are expensive. US and EU cars are on parity with each other, even with Chinese imports.
Low end cars are more expensive then they were decade ago because of safety technology, better materials and higher expectations. Frames are made of multi point precision aluminum with crumple zones instead of steel frame construction. A daily driver today out performs a performance car from 25 years ago.
VW ID2. $21,600.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/electric-cars/vw-slashes-ev-price-id-2-now-set-to-undercut-rivals-in-2026-launch/ar-AA1G3hCk
In 1984, the Nissan Sentra XE hatchback coupe had a manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of $7,299, which is approximately $22,038 in today's dollars. It had far less safety features than a VW ID2.
So, VW is selling the cars that in the US that you said they don't.
It remains to be seen if the VW ID2 will be sold in the US. It’s doubtful — just like the ID3 wasn’t the ID1 wont be, the 2-door Golf no longer is, and the smaller Buzz isn’t.
https://www.carscoops.com/2025/03/vw-id-1-wont-come-to-america-but-id-2-is-already-making-travel-plans/
There are comparable cars in the US and EU market for comparable prices. Is it just that this specific model isn't available yet?
I'm also seeing from European sites that the price is is Euro and not USD. Even in USD the car is still comparable to the other cars listed up above at 21.5k USD.
You brought up that
Technology like this gets cheaper as it becomes a commodity. Look at how cheap flat panel tvs have gotten."
So why aren't these EU cars significantly less expensive relative to their market?
So what is your point here? Was the point you are trying to make specific to VW? To EV's?
To be clear. I am stating the down market cars are pretty much in line with inflation pricing the the US car market and that much of the lowering in price that would have been achieved with manufacturing improvements went to safety and performance improvements.
Also Dodge is forcing ads on display screens at stoplights.
Computer.
But even so, it shouldn't be costing double at any rate.
I am willing to bet there's a layer of insurance policy at every stage of production just adding to the costs. Every business has to pay some kind of insurance tithe these days. It's just standard practice that the costs be passed onto the consumer because anyone who doesn't is run/bled out of business.
For some reason most of America decided that they needed a massive truck or SUV that could haul a semi trailer yet their needs 99.9% of the time are short trips and buying groceries.
Well you need to BE SAFE and walking is SCARY.
Americans didn't decide it. Loophole in fuel efficiency laws ties the fuel economy footprint to carriage size. So to get around this, the manufacturers started making the cars larger, wider, and boxier. It's why even small sedans are several inches wider than they used to be, when you can find them at all.
Something about companies lobbying for less tax on huge cars.
Sometimes I just want a car with power windows. That's it. I'll Putin my own deck and call it a day.
I don't need a zillion sensors worth 1k a piece and all that bullshit.
Now make me a 15k car which is brand new.
You're gonna have to start lobbying to get rid of safety and emissions regulations then.
Most the complexity of modern engines and the electronics attached, is for emissions and fuel efficiency (while customers ALSO want more power out of their increasingly tiny engines).
A lot of the expensive sensors in your car are related to safety systems. ESP, SRS, etc. Did you know reverse cameras are mandatory in many markets nowadays?
And you know why manual transmissions are barely being made anymore? Because they get worse fuel economy and performance in 90% of drivers' hands.
You're not wrong. I'm more talking about the other bullshit. HUDs instead of gauge cluster (or in addition to), power mirrors, power seats, heated and cooled seats, etc etc. There's so much of this type of thing that has crept up to base models.
HUDs are great, you get to see your speed without taking the eyes off the road. They're also an optional extra even in expensive cars.
Power mirrors have been around since the 80s. Heated seats are pretty much required in my climate, cooled is nice too - and only the former is standard (and only costs like a hundred bucks per car at most to implement tbh, it's a REALLY simple system). Actually if you want to go real cheap, the Dacia Sandero for 15k€ doesn't even have heated seats either. You have to pay 500€ for the thermo package to get those + automatic climate control.
If these things (cooled seats in particular) are now standard in base spec low-end cars in the North American market, it must mean people weren't buying cars without them. Because they're still optional extras in Europe.
Step 1: oligopoly. Step 2: Make less stuff, make it worse, and make it more expensive. Step 3: Use the wealth hoarded that way to make it easier to become a monopoly.
A literal decade late on that headline, good work CNN!
Unsustainable grift is unsustainable? Wow I'm shocked.
Mass transit systems yet? No? Okay, I'll check back in a decade after this problem has gotten substantially worse.
walk, bus, ride, roll, scoot…if you can!
Commuting via bike, scooter, or your legs in Car-merica? Give it a few months or years and you will be hit by a car.
I want to agree, but I know people that have been doing this for years without being hit.
I have an electric golf cart that I can take on any roads 35 mph or lower, I’m saving for a lithium upgrade so I can go farther than 15 miles round trip. I had my last vehicle stolen when cars were not available at the beginning of COVID. I bought a mini van to replace it, it cost twice what I wanted to pay but I have to have a good vehicle for the family and a sedan just wasn’t realistic. Luckily insurance also paid out over twice what my stolen vehicle originally cost me because of the market at the time. I love my mini van but I usually only drive it once or twice a week, most of my daily trips are in the golf cart.
Cars from the late 80s and early 90s are still fine today if produced; relatively safe, good fuel economy, air-conditioning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Civic_(fourth_generation)
Heck, 4/5 people would be happy with a side by side ATV as a form of transportation in urban/suburban areas. https://www.utvdriver.com/utv-news/cheapest-utility-side-by-sides/
A golf cart is suitable for at least 50% of people currently driving in cities, as the majority of small cars are just grocery getters. https://www.utvdriver.com/utv-news/cheapest-utility-side-by-sides/
Something is fundamentally wrong with the transportation; size, power, cost of cars.
Unfortunately they can not even be bought used because they've all rusted through (Japanese ones anyway, others are hit and miss)
Citation needed, they're usually missing most of the new safety features, that's why they can be so small and light
Maybe if you're in the US where diesels are the devil and everything has to be a truck. Modern cars have better fuel economy at even twice the weight. You can get similar or better highway fuel economy out of a 2.5 tonne Audi SQ7 tdi compared to a small 1 tonne 90s Honda Civic. Diesel of course helps a lot in that regard. But if a huge ass performance SUV gets similar mileage compared to a 90s ecobox, imagine what a normally sized modern car can do.
Was by no means standard on those, at least in Europe. Be lucky to have heated seats in a 90s Japanese ecobox, AC was nearly unheard of, and wasn't standard even in the 00s.
That's not even getting into emissions, which are the reason you don't get these cheap and simple 80s and 90s engines anymore. Now you need EGR to manage NOx, catalytic converters to manage CO2 and if it's a brand new car, even petrol engines need to have particulate filters.
Do any of these even have proper heating? Or like how do you demist the windshield between September and April when it's too cold to drive an open vehicle and too humid to not have heating and ideally AC to reduce humidity in the car?
They just look like nice summer toys.
The Honda Civic has had the same fuel economy now since the late 80s https://www.fuelly.com/car/honda/civic at 30mpg The VTEC engine has been computer powered for the same time, and has used a Catalytic converter that whole time. Only now, with an electric motor for first gear, do we see any mpg improvement.
The main safety feature, is that they gotten heavier.
15-minute duration, covering approximately 9.3 miles at an average speed of 18.6 mph" https://en.phongnhaexplorer.com/qna/travel/what-is-the-average-distance-of-a-car-trip.html#gsc.tab=0 Most cars don't even heat up in that time, an ATV or golf cart would be fine.
The Japanese haven't actually advanced much in the automotive industry in recent decades, so I'm not surprised there.
And yes, extra airbags, bigger crumple zones and noise insulation add weight and since.
My 2019 C class did about 60 mpg extraurban and it's significantly bigger. 30 sounds about right for urban. Cars have gotten better. Hondas? Ehh.
Even my diesels have started heating up the windshield in 5 minutes at most. You let it idle for 2 or 3 while removing the snow anyway. Or use webasto. Petrol engines of any real size heat up quicker so they don't usually need such things.
The only real breakthrough has been hybrid, for mpg and efficiency. I suspect internal combustion engines will be around for some time, but almost all cars will move to hybrid (hopefully plug in hybrid).
Cars heat up quickly now because, aside from the heat from the car engine, many have small electric heaters to overcome the first few minutes of cool air in the cabin and on the windshield. But all this tech comes at an expense to cost, simplicity, and repair-ability.
N. America really needs more public transit. Better trains between cities. Legislating pick-up trucks so they are safer to pedestrians. Allowing smaller companies to manufacturer cars, to break up the monopolies.
Direct injection becoming commonplace has done a lot too, espegially with piezoelectric injectors that can do multiple injection events per combustion cycle for diesel. Modern transmissions have more speeds, quicker shifts and less efficiency loss with fewer moving parts.
Hybrid in comparison doesn't do much for mpg unless it's plugin hybrid which of course can be a true game changer.
Resistive heaters aren't particularly fancy or expensive tech, but that's irrelevant, 90s cars also heat up fast (since the engine thermal efficiency is usually worse), I'm more interested in the UTV comparison here since you literally can't drive without heat here half the year.
Agreed on the transit. But is there any real need for new car manufacturers? It's very expensive to get started with a new one.
There's exactly one thing America needs to get smaller and cheaper cars. Proper taxation on fuel. Right now there's no incentive to sell cheap small cars if everyone wants a brodozer and crossovers are seen as tiny.
Proper taxation on fuel might help.
One massive problem is all the advertising of pickup trucks and muscle cars ... advertising works. So many people can only see themselves needing and driving a large pickup/suv or a Dodge Charger.
I'd like to see an advertising campaign for medium sized sedans pulling utility trailers ... as being macho. It shocking how few people use utility trailers, they are not a thing in N. America.
Physics. Force = mass X acceleration. Heavier vehicles are harder to turn, harder to stop.
Modern cars run wider tires and have better brakes, also ESP works some serious magic. Stopping distance is actually better than it used to be for most vehicles. Also suspension setups are more advanced, meaning tires are actually touching ground more of the time. This makes cornering better.
Then add airbags (not really a thing in a lot of late 80s and early 90s cars), real crumple zones, etc.
Barring stupid ass American trucks with zero visibility, vehicles have gotten safer over time. It's slowed down now, but still getting slightly better with driver assistance features, like blind spot detection, etc.
In urban environments an old 1980s car is fine, you can't really get into a high speed collision in a city.
Highway driving is statistically safer, so you can get away with a 1980s car on a highway.
Rural driving is o.k.-ish, if you are away of your surroundings on a rural road.
It's the sub-urban, specifically, the ex-urban environment in N.America that posses the most problems for driving an older 1980s car with limited safety features. People really speed on the wide, 6 to 8 lane, suburban streets.
Highway driving is actually where things like ESP and airbags matter most IMO. ESP can save your ass on unexpected black ice in a curve and airbags can save your ass when some oncoming assface decides to fall asleep and drift into your lane. Most highways in my country are not separated, so that's pretty dangerous.
A signficant portion of Florida uses Golf carts in closed communities.
The Honda fit is the best urban car I've ever driven. Street parking? No problem. I can fit a bike in the back or put my rack on for two. It seats 5 just like an suv. Great milage. Sure I wish it was electric and had android auto but otherwise it's amazing. Hell it handled a drive across the country stuffed completely full with stuff we didn't want to risk in a shipping box
There is no competition. Its a captive market.
Tough segment. There are examples like https://kilow.com/pages/la-bagnole of a cheap, small car but it's basic utilitarian. It is NOT a status symbol. It's equivalent to a cargo bike or long tail bike : it's not sexy, it's small range, you can't bring lots of people or furniture, it's JUST to go from A to B, mostly in small city or on the country side (if the roads are safe enough).
Meanwhile cars keep on being advertised, and thus mostly perceived, as something to travel with, to show of, to protect oneself and your family against the "others" as dangers on the road. Cars keep on getting bigger, higher and consequently heavier, polluting more (yes, even EVs, at least for pollution come from tires erosion on roads) and the acceptance window keeps on moving up.
Until laws get in place, like in Paris, to make SUVs expensive due to their impact on ourselves and our environment, car companies will keep on pushing for whatever makes the most money.
(US) I've noticed over the past couple of years that "small" trucks are starting to shrink again. Seems they finally hit critical mass.
I remember when the Toyota Tacoma was a truly small truck (up through the late 1990s, maybe early 2000s?). If I'm not mistaken, the 2015-2020ish Tacoma is the size of the 90s Toyota Tundra which was a "big" truck at the time. It's stupid. I need a truck but I don't need a $100,000 tank with a quad cab and a useless fucking tiny bed. About 75% of the people I know that buy those huge quad cab trucks actually need a minivan because all they use it for is shuttling their kids around but, of course, minivans aren't "cool".
... now I'm getting off topic but minivans are freaking awesome. Assuming the seats are stowable or removable, you get a ton of (enclosed) cargo space (more than those stupid quad cab trucks with tiny beds) and can optionally move a lot of people or a lot of cargo. They are fantastic for road trips if you need more space than a typical sedan.
This is one of the things in life that makes me irrationally angry. Give us small trucks that are actually small.
Which is why people in trades who actually work use vans, not stupid pickups.
I fucking pray this is true. All I want in a vehicle is a late 90s style pickup with a single cab and a full bed to drive on the highway. I don't need passenger space, I don't need ridiculous ground clearance, I don't need an engine powerful enough for towing. I just need something to haul furniture and lumber around in, maybe some yard waste if I ever manage to afford a house. Bonus points if it's electric.
If nothing like that comes out I'll just keep driving my Honda civic until it disintegrates and borrow my dad's shitty Colorado when necessary.
Don't get me wrong, they're currently still huge. But I saw a 2024 or 2025 Tacoma a few weeks ago that looked a fair bit smaller than the previous year models. I'm hoping we're on the rebound and that they're going to continue to decrease in size. Guess we'll see but I'm hoping so too.
I will say that I love a (tiny) extended cab - Toyota calls/called them the "access cab" and on the old (early to mid-90s) S10's I had I think they called them a "king cab". Having space in the cab to store tools, camping/emergency gear, etc is really nice. There are ""seats"" there in the Tacoma, presumably to get around the chicken tax, but they are horrible to use as such. The ones in the old S10 folded up into the side walls which was awesome. They were out of the way but available for the 0.0001% of the time you needed them and those actually weren't too horribly uncomfortable since they faced the center of the vehicle instead of forward.
Yeah the ones with like a 1.5 cab aren't terrible but I don't want something that's dedicating a whole ass second seating area for passengers when I don't ever drive other people around. Being able to fit an entire desk/bookcase/bedframe in the bed is far more important to me (and being able to get it out without having to climb because I'm short as fuck).
Yeah... honestly I would go much further. I'd say 90% of people do NOT need a truck and 90% do not need a car either. They might want one, and that's perfectly fine, but I bet if people were to actually check their GPS data for the last year we would see a very obvious pattern : 9-5 on the ring road from home to work, picking up kids, grocery, etc. Yes, there WILL be few trips to a warehouse, yes there will be a trip to the country side (but not off road) but that's NOT the normal traffic. That something that could, just for the pleasure of it, be a rental that is adapted to it. I think there is a huge gap between how people IMAGINE themselves driving versus their very boring daily life. They get a car or a truck for the person they want to be, not who they actually are.
To be clear, to anybody who DOES actually need a truck and do use it as a truck, or somebody with a wheelchair and needs an SUV to haul, please, pretty please those cars are made for you! Do buy one! It's for all the posers out there though that it's NOT ok.
my car is not reliable enough to justify keeping it anymore, and i chose to buy a honda ruckus instead of a new vehicle simply bc we cant afford the payments or potential repairs on 2 cars anymore. it is working because my partner works from home so we can get by with one car, and i do as much commuting on my ruckus as i can.
I wish I lived somewhere I could daily a scooter. I have a small collection of old Honda scooters I managed to snag off of marketplace just before covid/Trump made everything whack expensive. They spend most of the year in the shed because there's either a foot of snow on the ground or I'm traveling for work.
I recommend getting an upgraded seat for that ruckus because the stock one in my opinion is pretty rough. They also make some neat bags that fit in the under seat area.
thanks for the advice! it has underseat storage all kitted out but i am open to suggestions for saddlebags or similar. also is it worth it to find a windscreen (i ride in iowa in the winter lol)
A windscreen on my old motorcycle made a world of difference comfort wise. I image it will help in the cold too.
Wondering how long it takes Donvict and pals to blame this on Biden.
I get so sick of dealers advertising "$20,000 off! Only $499/mo" for overpriced cars no one wants, when $20K is larger than my entire vehicle budget and the max monthly payment I can handle is $150. My car is 20 years old and it's paid off, and I plan to drive it forever if prices aren't going to go back to reasonable levels.
Tbh this is largely consumers' faults. I know so many people who make a lot less money than I do and have similar needs from a vehicle but they still go out and buy big ass trucks and SUVs that cost 2-3x what my car would today. Yes there are systemic problems at play but ultimately the American public are not very good at making good decisions.
moneyarchy DOESN'T owe humankind viability!!
moneyarchy DOES owe concentration-of-wealth exclusive-rights.
What is surprising about that inevitability??
Feudalism is humankinds ONLY consistent form of civilization.
While Nature does democracy ( ungulates, dog-like animals, birds, etc ), humankind's nature is too egotistical to tolerate egalitarianism or equal-validity or democracy ( we even gaslight ourselves about "democracy", consistently labelling representative-republic "democracy", which it absolutely isn't:
it is "1-times removed" from democracy, & that's its intent )
Why would this change before humankind had experienced near-fatal-consequences-of-ignorance??
The near-fatal-consequences are about to be on humankind, throughout this century, but .. concentration-of-wealth as an economic-paradigm, produces exclusion-of-as-many-as-possible.
How can anybody be surprised about it?
THROUGH crushing inferiors, glorifying superiors. That's how "class" based validity works: always been about excluding the biggest majority as it can, & always will be, unless human-nature changes.
That is its point!
_ /\ _