Here’s why there are so few new cars for under $30,000
Here’s why there are so few new cars for under $30,000
arstechnica.com
Here’s why there are so few new cars for under $30,000
37 comments
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Partially tariffs, but beyond that the article didn't really explain. Save your clicks.
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It's complicated.
As someone who got to see this from the inside:
- When constructing a car, one of the key components is the wiring harness that bundles together all the wiring for the vehicle.
Surprisingly most wiring harnesses used to come from Ukraine of all places. So when Russia invaded Ukraine, that completely disrupted the wiring harness supply.
To work around that, manufacturers had to come up with either new, stable suppliers or invest in their own production lines.
- Covid. As mentioned in the article, but there were multiple impacts on that. For example, it made it incredibly difficult to do lease returns. If people leasing their cars can't return them, then they can't get into new vehicles. Similar, re-sellers of lease returns and fleet vehicles have no stock because nobody is returning their lease.
- Tariffs. Also as noted in the article.
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This is compounded by Manufacturers and legislative bodies forcing driver assistance systems on everyone.
<sarcasm>
Back when I was a lad, I could drive my manual-transmission vehicle while reading a paper street directory, texting on one phone, talking on another and eating a cheeseburger., Kids nowadays don’t know how to drive.</sarcasm>
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They elude to it in the second line after the title but they never point it out:
Five years ago it was a lot easier to buy a car for less than $30,000.
...and later in the article....
New cars costing less than $30,000 were just 13.9 percent of all car sales in the first half of this year; for the first six months of 2019—before the pandemic drove up new car prices by so much—they made up 38 percent of new car sales.
I think the answer is simply inflation:
$30,000 in 2019 is worth $37,722.15 today
...and...
$24,000 in 2019 is worth $30,177.72 today
So for apples to apples comparison the question should be, "How many fewer cars costing $24,000 in 2019 are there that cost $30,000 today?", but the article doesn't ask or answer that question.
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Probably because it's just a nice round tens of thousands that's the current benchmark. It wasn't long ago that similar articles mourned the scarcity of the sub-$20k car. I don't want to say it was a Scion, but I don't think the gap could be that big between the death of scion and the general loss of the $19, 999 car.
Tried to look up what I saw years ago and instead found there were still sub-$20k cars as of 2024. Hyundai Venue and Mitsubishi Mirage. And the venue just surpassed the mark.
Anyway, see you again in 2029-2035 when someone else writes about the loss of the $40,000 economy car
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Tariffs are new.
They will push average prices even higher but the average new car price has been around 40k for a few years now.
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Even used cars are stupid expensive which makes no sense beyond greed.
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People that wanted to buy new are instead settling for used. They have more money on hand, meaning in order to secure the deal, they're offering more money closer to asking price. They were probably even over asking price in 2020-2022. It's automotive gentrification where the top buyers are settling for lesser product, pushing each bracket of buyer down to a lower product rank, squeezing the bottom buyers out of the market. So tell me, with buyers willing to spend more, are YOU going to be the one that charitably sticks to the 2019 KBB value of a car you're selling?
Anyway, take a look, used prices are down closer to where inflation was projected pre-2020. New car supply is up, so most used cars normalized. Project car prices have crashed now that most people are commuting and socializing again and don't have time. Hybrids/EVs leveled out since gas prices are normalized.
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I helped look for a new used car for my parents in 2019/20 not sure of the exact time anymore. I recently just for the sake of it looked for the exact same car again with the now run kilometres. They bought very cheap, but the fact that the price is the same even though it has now run more than double the kilometres is ridiculous.
Car in question is a VW Passat Variant 2.0TDI, 2016, with then 65k km for 16k € - today it has 145k km and still goes for around the same price
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Were putting the country that makes actual usable cars that don't cost more than a house under 240% tariffs.. That is against capitalism.
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The tariffs benefit no one but the wealthy. This is very much in line with capitalism in practice. All that free market talk is just a justification they use when it benefits the ruling class.
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Main reason for me is tech i hate. I don't want any tech. Efi, and maybe AC. Maybe ABS for winter but not needed. Stop making me buy junk I don't want. I'll stick to old cars that aren't a rolling computer that is locked down by a dealer.
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All the tech bullshit is obvious.
When you make a product and keep improving it, at some point you reach max level product and then what? People won't buy your new car if it doesn't have something amazing new that the competition has too, so you'll just start making bullshit features.
Then you figure out that with software you can sell the car AND charge a monthly subscription fee, so you can squeeze your
golden goosecustomer even moreAll this was inevitable since decades ago
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Yay late stage capitalism
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And that's why I'm only going to buy classic cars from now on. I can wrench on them myself and tariffs don't make a damn difference
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Until you need to buy a parts, I’m rebuilding a truck and watching the prices go up
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Keep your classic cars roadworthy and registered.
Legislative changes and requirements for useless and dangerous Advanced Driver Assistance Systems are making it more difficult to keep older cars on the road.
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TLDR; Shit's expensive, wages not expansive.
37 comments