Buying a new car has become unaffordable for a growing number of Americans. The auto industry is worried
3mon 12d ago by sh.itjust.works/u/Valnao in fuckcars from www.nytimes.com
MAYBE if they Fired MORE Workers and RAISE Prices of their Cars all those Unemployed People can Purchase their Vehicles? Have they tried THAT yet?
Stellantis will remember this.
He has been thinking about replacing his 2020 Ford F-150 pickup truck
Just... wtf.... Your car is only 6 years old and it's just so old that you really think to need to replace it? And your story is so relatable it lands in an article? How much difference can you even see between that 2020 and a 2026 model really?
He needs more surveillance in his truck.
I suspect it's media lying again, in order to normalize replacing vehicles more often.
I don't think it's lying, I was in a lot in 2022 looking at a used 2021 with like 8k miles on it and wondered what they got bought after trading in. The guy said that he actually bought a 2022 of the exact same model, because he didn't want to be seen driving anything but the current years model.
They certainly exist and can be found to quote, just seems out of touch to treat the situation as somehow "worrying" enough to make the cut. Figured you probably could have found someone with at least a decade old car to comment...
"I don't want to be seen driving last years model" Rolls the $36k he still owns on that old truck into the $100k loan on the new one.
Nah, the guy is probably badly upside down on the loan, and the truck is depreciating so fast he won't be able to roll the loan/trade-in over into another truck.
I mean, it's a Ford tho.
Surprisingly, a majority of Fords made in the 90's are still on the road today!
...It's simply not worth the expense to haul them away. XD
Jk
How much difference can you even see between that 2020 and a 2026 model really?
I wonder if it was manufactured in that weird sweet (bitter?) spot where "supply chain issues" made everyone use cheaper parts and forego many chip-based components entirely.
If they are a frequent driver, they could be putting 20k-25k a year on their truck. Like yeah I wouldn't want a Ford with 120k miles on it either.
Yeah in 15 months I've put 35k on my car 😭😭 let's not talk about what I've put on my work truck...
So they’re responding by making more affordable, efficient vehicles, right? Adopting new technology, right? Right?
Seriously, all they have to do is make an EV or hybrid under $20k and not try to push subscription BS.
But how will they make money next quarter if you spend money on them this quarter only???
People need to understand that money sitting around in a savings account is bad for the economy. You owe it to your country to be in debt. /s
No. Buy a ferd f150000 to stomp your neighbors and make liberals cry! Go on TOUGH mountain trails with 18 row seating and 13000 lbs of Karen fuelled road rage!
*note can only carry 1 person 99% of the time. Cannot touch a non asphalt road or warranty void. Must kill at least 3 cyclists/children monthly due to 0 visibility.
Just sign up for this $1,800 per month loan for the next 90 months.
Houses were more affordable than this when I was a kid.
No, they want everyone to have more money to give to them...
Reminded me of a UAW spokesperson being interviewed on tariffs...
When asked why he had advocated for auto tariffs before the tariffs came on, and now why was he complaining that the tariffs were unaffordable, his explanation was simple, he wanted tariffs only on the things that competed with them, and the rest of the economy left alone so that everything can be more affordable except the stuff they did.
They want to sell those high margin high priced cars and are grousing because the rest of the economy isn't fueling the consumer budget enough to fulfill their ambitions.
“We build cars that are too expensive for most people to buy and we need that profit! What could we do?”
Even Henry Ford figured it out, a century ago.
Life in general has been unaffordable for awhile now.
Corporations pay stagnant wages, raise prices, funnel money out of the economy to shareholders who hoard wealth, and then get worried when there's no one left who can buy their products?
Tell me again why we think C-Suite folks are smart?
Right, because they'll get bailed out again and stay rich. That's why.
It's a god damn disgrace.
I'm sure someone will come around and tell me how complicated economics is and why we should trust business and industry leaders who went to school for this sort of thing, like basic pattern recognition and common sense couldn't have predicted that people who can barely afford groceries would stop buying cars...
Fuck.
Thanks the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993
Think you pretty much nailed it.
Tell me again why we think C-Suite folks are smart?
Some weird fetiziation that financial accumen is somehow the ultimate mark of intelligence above all else.
The auto industry is worried
I mean, they have the power to reduce the price. 🤷♂️
But then the line won't go up as much and the CEO won't get his bonus :(
And it would just be uncouth if the CEO couldn't buy another yacht to go with his new mansion this year.
Literally the same day this article was published, Hyundai decided to cancel their electric sedan in favor of an SUV-only lineup.
Crazy, because I've been praising them for their aesthetic design (polygonal angles done right, proving the kampfwagon didn't ruin it for everyone) and cool electrics and wishing I could've got one, but...yeah.
The U.S car sitch is such a tragic joke.
Any cars out there under 30k that are completely manual and don't have a screen, that I can repair myself? No? Well, I'll never buy a new car then, fuck you automakers.
We had millions of those types of cars 20 years ago, now they're nonexistent.
I'll even get an electric if its completely analog. But they refuse to do that even though it takes very very little effort. An electric car is (mostly) a voltage regulator a motor and a battery. Its not hard people.
don't have a screen
Its not legal to make that car anymore in Canada/USA and likely other places. They are mandated to have a backup camera all over the place.
EU mandates an SOS call function as well, so a data connection is also basically mandatory.
Is it though?
I don't suppose I know the EU situation, but at least in the US, cellular towers are supposed to accept an emergency call regardless of anything like a SIM susbscription, so if the car doest uses a cellular modem to dial emergency ervices, the car wouldn't necessarily actually need a subscription active.
Maybe it doesn't work that way in EU, but it seems like it should be the case that a mandatory emergency call function shouldn't carry a subscription burden.
The moment you spend the money putting in a cellular connection that can make a call (SOS) and be connected to a mic and speaker system, you start asking how can we recoup that cost.
We already have a backup screen mandated by law.
We can show maps on it and stream music from their favorite music service!
You can put that extra stuff behind a paid sub.
Most will have an active subscription even if you aren't using it, because it's cheaper to have basically a bulk subscription service than to administer single accounts.
Doesn't apply to motorbikes, and they get crazy high fuel efficiency to cars.
If you want to raise your chances of dying substantially over a backup camera you can go right ahead. Please sign your organ donor card first though.
I normally cycle instead. Even fewer regulations and taxes.
Cycling is great ya. Every city should be working towards adding more and more cycling infrastructure.
A lot of people will complain, but its worth it.
I'll cycle with or without it, I don't really have a choice. Gotta buy food.
There used to be a car like that, could get a manual and you could fix it yourself - on the rare occasion it needs work.
It was the 2014-2024 Mitsubishi Mirage, and the entire US made fun of it. That's what happens when someone makes a cheap, dependable, simple car in the US, people act like it's the worst vehicle ever made because you can see exposed screw heads when you open the door.
That sounds freaking rad to me. I want an open source car standard so bad. Exposed screwheads, teardowns galore, commonly available parts.
I'd even learn manual. I hear they're fun.
The biggest con is we've been trained to see vehicles as fashion and status statements rather than their utility.
Putting one of those together would be a pretty awesome highschool shop class.
Sometimes a strange car will gain a sort of "cult" following, and that's when you sometimes end up with a situation like you describe, where parts are made by many different 3rd parties. I have an old Japanese 4x4 that was so awesome that Mopar had to team up with consumer reports and the government to kill it. It's 30+ years old and I can get parts for it as easily as I can an F150.
Notable past and current examples of this include:
Chevy Corvair
Geo Metro
Harley-davidson anything
Jeep wrangler
Suzuki Samurai
Toyota Supra
Edit: formatting are hard
The things you seem to think are making cars more expensive, are actually the cost-cutting measures.
The screen is cheaper than a myriad of buttons. Which is literally why Ferrari hired Apple's Jony Ive to design their upcoming EV's interior... with physical controls (it'll still have a screen, but the important features have buttons and knobs and shit and they'll be made of metal and/or glass). To stand out from the crowd, as even premium manufacturers are using cheapo touchscreens instead of making proper interiors anymore.
As for "completely manual", if you mean manual transmission, those are gone because of low demand and the fact that it just costs more to support multiple options. Plus modern autos can actually be incredible. If you actually listen to the transmission manufacturer NOT the car manufacturer for maintenance schedules, they last longer than the clutch tends to do on most manuals and while a clutch job is easier than an auto trans rebuild, it's still not easy. Either one is going to total a 20 year old car for most people (not you or me if we work on our own cars, of course). Oh and automatic transmissions are now more fuel efficient than mediocre drivers with manual transmissions (not necessarily as fuel efficient as great drivers with manual transmissions though).
Anyway, screens themselves aren't bad. The best car I ever owned was (admittedly not under 30k new, but under 30k when I got it used) a 2019 Mercedes C-Class which had a nice screen with Apple Carplay and Android Auto support, but NO touch. There were physical buttons for everything you'd generally want, and you could control the screen with either the rotary knob, the touchpad in front of the armrest, or the steering wheel buttons. But you literally could NOT finger the screen itself to do anything. They changed that with the next generation a few years later, unfortunately. But for me this was perfect because I had a way to control navigation and the music on my phone that did not involve looking at my phone, or interacting with a touch screen.
In fact I don't think any of these features are what makes cars more expensive compared to 20-30 years ago. Screens are cheap now. Automatic everything has been figured out already, the R&D costs for most things already recuperated. It's the size creep if anything. They'll sell exclusively crossovers and SUVs because these are "premium" and margins are better. And even "small" cars, if they still exist, are bigger than the same model used to be. Oh and let's not forget that if you're in the US, everything needs to have like 500 horsepower now, while emissions and fuel efficiency goals dictate smaller engines, so everything HAS to have a turbo now.
In Europe, cheap cars still exist, though they've doubled in price over the last 2 decades (but what hasn't). You CAN still get a Dacia Sandero for 15k. It's so bare bones that to inflate the list of installed equipment, they list things like "fuel tank cap" and "front seat belts" among others. Even that comes with a 10" touch screen as standard because it's just so cheap to add one and it's much easier for them to design than a classic head unit with buttons.
A friend of mine's first assignment as a senior engineer was to find ways to eliminate more moving parts and metal fasteners from cheaper spec products, because removing a dozen two cent screws would save the company tens of millions over the life of the design. Not just in parts, but because they're more complicated and take longer to install than just snapping and glueing a plastic shell together.
With the scale of manufacturing at companies like GM and Ford, saving a few thousand per car on parts and labor with a touchscreen infotainment system is a massive, massive amount of money. The R&D costs of converting from knobs to touchscreens would probably be covered in the first few months.
Precisely. And keep in mind that the buttons and knobs would usually be different on the different models, but with the touchscreen OS you have one OS you keep developing and just hide some of the features in some of the models. So there's less model-specific R&D and more common R&D for all products
Also maintenance is cheaper when you reduce things that can break, so lower warranty costs as well.
It’s the size creep if anything
I don’t know. My brother works for a legacy manufacturer and claims the difference in material cost between small and large vehicles is minimal. Assembly cost is far more than material cost. He used this to justify why they couldn’t make a small truck: it’s equally complex to assemble and the materials cost difference is minimal so they couldn’t make it enough cheaper that anyone would buy it.
Up to you whether to buy the company line but that’s the claim
I drive a 2013 Miata with 6 speed manual rear wheel drive configuration and it has no tracker and no screen.
sounds like you want a miata
I have a 99 loll. Peak car
Is there anything like a miata for bigger people? One of these days I plan to own a home and would love a project car. People always seem to suggest a miata because they are cheapish, repairable, and have a huge community modding them. The problem? I am 6"4'. Maybe I could go with a convertible miata and wear goggles.
Slate promises to be analog
It's all those blasted safety features! In my day we died every weekend, and we turned out fine!
There is a paradox with safety features that is really interesting: the safer you make roads, the more aggressive people drive. Better breaks led to people tailgating more aggressively. Better crumble zones has led to bigger and heavier cars. It's almost like there is a threshold of risk that people naturally gravitate to and that maybe the best way to improve traffic safety is through education
A professor at my university wrote a book called Navigating Environmental Attitudes, and he titled a chapter, "Educating the Public... and Other Disasters". TL; DR: It doesn't work.
That's why I advocate for a big, metal spike on the steering wheel, pointed at the driver's chest. (Okay, or designing the roads so that they feel unsafe, so drivers naturally slow down and pay attention.)
I remember reading a study about speeding in neighborhoods. It's not unusual to have people driving 50+ in a 25 MPH neighborhood.
Speed bumps actually caused people to drive faster between the bumps.
What worked was more curves and narrow roads. Essentially making it more dangerous.
So you're not wrong.
I've done the experiments myself. The street that I live on is a rat-run, on which drivers speed through a residential neighborhood with lots of bicyclists, kids, people walking dogs, students walking to school, and the like. The street is ridiculously wide, enough for four vehicles to squeeze by.
So I sometimes park my vehicle on the street. (I bike to work, and most other places.) That visual narrowing of the street is enough to slow them down a bit. The best day was when the people across the street had contractors in, and they parked their trucks on the street while I parked my vehicle on my side. There was still room for two vehicles to squeeze by (and the bus drivers would YOLO it through), but it felt so narrow that most people would stop for oncoming traffic, and take turns through the cataract.
(Okay, or designing the roads so that they feel unsafe, so drivers naturally slow down and pay attention.)
This can be as simple as drawing disorienting lines on the road.
Or choosing a width and windiness to achieve desired speeds, fill the reclaimed space with bike lanes and parking or bus stops or gardens or playgrounds in the widest parts
Yes. People are much worse at driving now mostly due to phones, but so because they've never driven a miata on public highways.
So improve safety by replacing airbags with nail bombs?
In order to have an effect, the driver has to know about the danger.
Almost like Capitalism isn't sustainable, right?
Cars are luxuries.
Without public transportation they aren't. When you live 20 miles from your job in Bumfuck, USA how do you get there without a vehicle?
Dude, I'm in the San Diego area. And if I had to rely on the bus, a simple grocery shopping trip would take at least 3 hours, not counting a mile and a half walk to and from the nearest stop. I did take a train and an express bus to work, because it happened to stop directly at my workplace.
No, they still are. You can always turn a luxury into a relative need by stretching out resource intensity. I could easily make the case for commuting with rockets from the Moon to Earth and back, or for some billionaire commuting with a private jet. Doesn't make it not a luxury.
If you hate it, protest against the car system and suburbia, and for dense urban development with public transit. There is no alternative.
Not just that it's unaffordable but I'm not paying 60k for a car with a porcelain transmission that needs monthly software updates that might just brick the thing.
"Porcelain transmission" sent me.
Don't forget the oil pumps driven by rubber belts that need half the engine disassembled to replace it.
This! When I was 16 I bought a P.O.S. Buick for 600 bucks. I did all the normal maintenance myself in my driveway. Oil, pads, filters, belts.... Seems like you need a special tool for each part on new cars if you can even get to the part to replace without taking half the engine out.
Even the fuckin battery was bolted down with a long bracket that needed a special 18 inch socket extension to unfasten. Wtf
Wait till you hear about the BMW proprietary screws
It depends on the new car, I've found. A Mitsubishi Mirage is considerably easier to deal with than a BMW anything, because the people who designed the mirage had an eye toward maintenance because of the type of car it is. The BMW will go to the shop, while the Mirage will get it's clutch changed in the driveway.
The auto industry is concerned about a problem of their own making? Shocking.
Nobody asked for a 100k pickup truck. Who wants to throw boards and chains in that?
You want a V8, air suspension and 10 speed auto - you're paying $100k.
I don't want air ride and I don't want 10 speed auto. My father got a 2020 F350 with a 10 speed auto and it turned itself to gravel. It's a POS that I'm hounding him to sell once it's payed off. Who the fuck thought a press on timing gear was a good idea?
My father is a boomer and can be shamed into vanity purchases. That's who's speeding 100k on trucks.
I do not understand buying a truck unless you need to haul shit for work. As a passenger vehicle, trucks are idiotic.
I haul shit for work.
Then it's a tool for business. Hope you're writing that shit off too.
I want a 200hp 4x4 with sealed beam headlights.
I have a 65 HP 4x4 with sealed beam headlights...
It's OK, we'll just rent vehicles per journey, and in order to make things more efficient, put extra seats in and run bigger cars between popular destinations. Maybe even use rails for really popular places.
Maybe they'll think of a name for this in the future.
Maybe if they had a line of them hooked together? A train of some sort?
No what if we sold everyone a new car, and then bored tunnels under the cities to run them super fast with computer control
Oh wait no that's the dumbest thing ever sorry
only if we can call them "pods"!
That would never work!
They all sit on each others' boards. There is no real competition.
This isn't just a car problem. The problem is they won't pay us enough, they know it, we know it. They'll do anything to keep from paying us more than the absolute minimum they must. Inflation is just another word for greed. They're going to keep pushing until the entire thing collapses, and then they're going to go hide in their bunkers.
They're going to keep pushing until the entire thing collapses, and then they're going to go hide in their bunkers.
Which is SO weird. Because even if your bunker is luxurious as heck, why the heck would you prefer that over a functioning world to run amok in?
Especially if, worst case, all that wealth turns into nothing because it doesn't readily convert to bottlecaps or something lol.
Americans cars just suck and always sucked but now they suck at 60k usd instead of 30k usd.
If I'm buying a car it would be a BYD, not some gas guzzler by an overpriced American manufacturer which are laughing stocks all over the world.
I'll take a fifteen year old car with a manual transmission.
Without a network of super expensive proprietary sensors that need replacing every time it rains? How on earth will you manage?
The monopoly game is almost over
No, these corporations passed Go and collected 200billion.
maybe stop making everything an apartment on wheels with ipads everywhere. 🤷
Two problems, US income distribution is pathetic and shareholder power.
they are too stupid to realize that sucking money out of poor people is like crude oil. It will run out.
Tragedy of the commons. It's not that they don't realize the resource is running out; it's that they want to be the ones to extract as much as possible before it's gone.
Gosh, if only Ford made kei trucks and sedans at a reasonable cost.
Instead, a lifted crew cab pickup with a 4 foot bed has become the new soccer mom van.
No lie, if I could afford a car right now, I’d want a cheap electric. Beyond that, I’d LOVE to EV convert my dad’s old truck.
I've actively been shifting my life away from needing a car, but I'm in the same boat. If I wanted a car, I'd want a cheap little electric sedan. But I've owned an EV before and have no range anxiety, whereas anti-EV sentiment is all over the US talking about how will I ever survive if I can't drive more than 300 miles in a day without a 20 minute charge, as if everyone does that constantly and it wouldn't be 5 hours of driving, which is miserable.
If you think cars are bad, definitely don't buy a boat!
Consumers can't afford product or services. Labour value stealing business owners confused.
Maybe don't produce only giant tanks that cost 60+k assholes.
Of course the auto industry would be worried that they're seeing the effects of a problem they caused.... /sarcasm
Then maybe the auto industry should stop donating to Republicans.
The numbers don't lie. Republicans are bad for our economy. Bad economy means people don't buy the 1st or 2nd most expensive thing they'll ever buy (since many will never be homeowners).
Weird. Something in the US is becoming unaffordable. That’s wild.
I’ve been driving the same car for over 20 years and it was old before I bought it. If I ever replace it, it will be for something that doesn’t cost money to operate. I’m hoping Aptera pulls a win and changes the game for everyone.
My 2014 Hyundai Sonata is about ready to bite the big one. I will not be getting another car for a while. The nearest bus stop to my apartment is just under a mile away, and my knees are shite. I'm looking at getting a motorized scooter to jet me up the sidewalkless stretch of road I live on to the bus stop, then commute in to work. I work for the city, so I have a free bus pass.
It's gonna suck for a while, but I don't have any better options.
2014?? My Nissan Primera from 96 is still running fine. Check with a mechanic if its possible to resurrect your car. It should hold for longer.
Hyundai's and kias are known for costing more in labor and parts to repair (while taking a chance it might not work out) than a comparable car in working order.
Hyundai and Kia have multiple engines through the 2010's that are prone to varying degrees of death from sudden to less-so-but-still-immediate. (there's been lawsuits, extended warranties, etc.)
And that's before you include the whole easy-theft design flaw increasing insurance and vandalism risk from the same time period.
It's a shame since it really kicked off their "solid value car with some sneaky design flaw that'll kill it/burn it/strand you/cost a lot of money later/etc." trend that continues to this day - even in their electric models.
If it's a second car and exclusively driven locally then you can be fine with one especially since you'll have lots of cheap parts at junkyards for a while to come. Especially if the engine's been replaced already under the lawsuit but multiple replacement engines isn't unheard of. And you'll want to change oil every 3-4k miles and watch the oil level like a hawk.
Not saying they haven't made a solid individual vehicle nor are all lawsuit vehicles about to die but it's not really great having that Sword of Damocles dangling to save a buck. (of course it depends on how many bucks are involved)
Truthfully, it's not worth it. It had an engine replacement a few years ago, and lately, I'm racking up repair bills faster than I can pay them off.
Cars as a subscription, any day now.
A lease?
Nah, people can't even afford down payments for a lease now.
On credit.
This wouldn't be a bad idea if it was affordable and I could choose the vehicle month to month. Like I don't need a big pick up truck everyday but having one for a month to get the basement or garage cleaned up over the course of a few weekends would be nice.
From what I've heard, if you're working from home or otherwise not a daily driver carshare services are legitimately a better deal. Get whatever kind of car you need, when you need it, cheaper subscription than owning a car and insurance and upkeep, etc
This would suit me well. Are there any stand out carshare services I should look in to first?
Especially community owned ones?
I know hourcar in Minneapolis is non profit, but don't have firsthand experience with them myself. This may be of interest to you https://youtu.be/OObwqreAJ48
Maybe it is time to switch to communities built not around cars?
Maybe we could have 4 days weeks and more work-at-home to save gas?
cries in walkable cities with public transportation
wHy Do mIlLeNnIaLs HaTe ThE aUtO iNdUsTrY
i WANT a new car. the apr is insane.
This is another big factor. Stealerships have learned that as long as the monthly payment looks low they can charge whatever interest they want, and not mention it until after Americans have signed on the doted line.
Edit: Anecdotally, a friend of mine bought a NEW CAR because she was worried she was spending too much on paying off her current one. The monthly payment went down, so she was all smiles. I don't have numbers, but she must have been close to paying that first car off. But hey she's "saving" $150 a month!
We've been watching the slow motion disaster caused by the poorly thought out CAFE standards for years now. Why the fuck is nobody talking about reforming them. They have fully backfired, why keep them at all.
Also the tariff on Chinese EVs. If we're going to fuck over every other American to subsidize the manufacturing sector why are we doing it to subsidize making stuff that sucks instead of subsidizing manufacturing stuff that doesn't suck.
So let in the 10,000$ Toyota EV1 and the like.
Why are they worried when the government will just bail them out again?
The government made money on the auto bailouts. That actually turned out to be a good investment. Cash for Clunkers was the real bailout: taxpayers paid thousands of dollars to people buying new cars so they'd destroy their old car instead of putting it into the used car market, driving up the prices of all cars and denying lower-income folks the ability to purchase a reasonable car for a reasonable price. Then Covid hit and demand shot through the roof and we all got fucked.
Have they considered advocating for higher wages so people can afford their cars?
This is kind of a misleading statistic. Cars have gotten more reliable. There's less reason to buy new. Saavy buyers buy used so the average new car buyer is increasingly from the subset of the population that's materialistic and bad with money.
Its gonna get worse. This is start of second much worse dark age.
What makes things cheaper and more affordable, is mass production. As cars get too expensive, they'll have to manufacture fewer of them. As they manufacture fewer of them, they will get more expensive.
In the dark ages, most had nothing, but kings had castles, and horses, and feasts, slaves and whores.
This time it might be a bit different since AI can provide labour, but their problem that will still remain, is that only the rich will be consumers.
So the overall wealth of the world will go down. Most will be poor with nothing, and the wealthy will also be limited, since they can no longer take advantage of economics of scale.
But they will still be the wealthiest and most powerful, which is ultimately what they care about most.
The world will regress. The second dark age will be far worse than the first, and far more widespread.
And its all because social media allowed fascists to lie, and stupid people believed them, and those that didnt couldn't be bothered to do anything about it.
Nah. There's way too many literate people, and information is easy to access. This isn't going to be a dark age dystopia. It'll be closer to corporate owned life.
Information is not easy to access. Wikipedia is the only real safe information. All social media, google, reddit, these can all be controlled by trump. Soon WB as well.
AI is insane already. Soon it will be extremely difficult to know what is truth, and what isn't, and accessing anything the government doesnt want you to see will be extremely difficult.
And once people who fix their old Camry umpteen times instead of buying a new one, there will be even more lobbying for anti-repair.