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used car and truck prices leaped 10.5%, accounting for more than one-third of all the price index’s gains I read just this morning[1] that used car prices are

• mywittyname 5y ago
  Oh no. No no no. Used cars prices are turbofucked for a good 5-6 years. You can't just magically poof into existence all the cars that weren't produced in 2020, 2021, and beyond. In 2009, new car production halved and it wasn't until 2015 that new car production finally matched the 2007 peak. Meaning the USA lost out on about 45 million cars which would have been produced during those six years. As a result, used car prices were elevated for quite a while. I bought two new cars in 2014 and a new 2014 model was priced at the same as a used 2012 model, and 2010 models were barely discounted. The USA has a strong "used cars = better deals" culture. So people don't generally buy cheaper cars new, they buy more expensive used cars for a similar price. This has lead to a nearly complete removal of the cheap car segment, meaning that there very few cheap new cars that people can purchase. Which means we need a 3-4 years of good new car sales in order to start really driving down used car prices.