4 ms·

I think part of the problem is that safety and fuel economy regulations have made it unprofitable to manufacture basic cars. But my slightly-conspiratorial vie

I think part of the problem is that safety and fuel economy regulations have made it unprofitable to manufacture basic cars. But my slightly-conspiratorial view is also that companies want to engage in a kind of "customer indoctrination", where they want to train customers to expect and demand high-margin low-value features, so they can freely cut lower-margin sections of their product line. Sort of like the "starve the beast" approach, but for consumer preferences.

ninth_ant 4y ago
It doesn’t require any conspiratorial thinking. If the math says that the company will lose sales to higher-margin products by offering low-margin ones, it’s a simple calculation to make the most profitable choice. Of course, potential consumers could switch to a cheaper product from another manufacturer — in a sufficiently free market the unfulfilled demand for the low-margin option should be enough warrant a new entrant if the market is big enough. TLDR if enough people wanted a simple car, someone would make it even if the existing companies don’t want to.
- aae42 4y ago
  Like an old thinkpad
- Sevii 4y ago
  They already manufacture he toyota hilux at scale yet you can't buy it in America.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    Sounds like that underlines the OP's point. Toyota makes more profit in the US on a Tacoma designed for US tastes and price points. The US demand for Hiluxes isn't enough to either persuade Toyota to add it to their US line or importers to pay the import tariff.
- rhino369 4y ago
  I'm not sure where I read it, but Toyota apparently saves money in the USA by making optional features included in the base model. In the 90's and early 00's, US companies would churn out base models with crank windows, manual transmissions, etc. Toyota found it was cheaper to engineer/build cars with fewer options, especially one's that everyone chose anyway. And customers didn't feel nickle and dimed. That makes sense to me. That's part of why the Model T was so cheap.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    >Toyota found it was cheaper to engineer/build cars with fewer options, especially one's that everyone chose anyway It's easy when you're Toyota and the overwhelming majority of your customers are middle class on up consumers. When you're Nissan or Chrysler and you NEED to offer low MSRP stuff so your customers can just barely qualify for the loan or you're Ford and you NEED to offer base spec stuff for the fleet customers it's not so easy.
DoneWithAllThat 4y ago
It’s kind of crazy how many things are mandated now that weren’t 20 years ago. Abs, traction control, airbags for both driver and passenger, rear camera (which means a screen to view it is also mandated), more and more emissions controls, etc. Not saying all or most of these are bad things but the number of expensive electronic and mechanical add-ons legislated into every vehicle makes it basically impossible to make a “basic” car.
- pas 4y ago
  And despite all that more people are dying on the roads, and there are more cars on the road (290 million around August, ) ... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33765179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33765179 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - adventured 4y ago
    The US is getting worse at pretty much everything. It's a long-term, comprehensive cultural erosion that stretches from mainstreet to DC.
    - pas 4y ago
      > cultural erosion Meh. US culture was always a bit too simplistic, from homesteading the manifest destiny to "USSR has fallen, democracy won" and finally with "first black president elected, racism officially over guys", and now it seems society entered a post-modernist phase. I mean the obvious fallacies[0] of these oversimplifications are getting the spotlight culturally. And it's mighty polarizing. One one hand it's too much for some people and on the other hand it's still nothing substantial for others. [0] Yes, the USSR has fallen, but Putin built a cleptocracy, also here comes China. Oh, yes Obama got elected and the ACA is nice, but it hardly moved the needle for millions of people. The benefits of half a century of global and domestic changes concentrated in the top ~30%, and the drawbacks hit the bottom ~30%, and weaponized selfishness, shortsightedness, and radical demagoguery (ie. ingroup vs outgroup populism, both the eat-the-rich and the republiklan variety) are on the rise again, because social media maximizes engagement.
  - 4y ago
GLGirty 4y ago
That doesn't sound conspiratorial at all. All sorts of features drift from being 'luxury items' to 'no one will buy a car without it.' In my life time time this has happened with air conditioning, power windows, heated seats. To say nothing of mandated safety features. I think the way auto makers have 'trained' their customers is by removing the granularity of customization. Back in the day, every possible option could be tweaked when you ordered a new car. I knew a family that ordered their van with (standard) upholstery seats in the front, but cheaper vinyl seats in the back (because small kids with drinks). You can't cherry pick features now, you just get 3 or 4 trim packages: base / standard / luxury / luxury + sport. And base is so punishingly sparse it only exists to lower the 'starting at' price in ads. And that level of indoctrination is nothing compared to the 60 years long campaign to keep most urban development zoned as car-centric sprawl.
mywittyname 4y ago
The problem is entirely that the vast majority of new car buyers don't want "basic cars." Even car enthusiasts, who talk endlessly about how simple cars are better, will point out how poor of a deal a new "basic" car is compared to a used luxury car. Jalopnik and the like used to constantly run articles like, "Why buy a new Honda Civic when you can get this 2012 Infiniti G35 for the same price?!!?" Sometimes they were tongue-in-cheek, featuring something like an Maserati, but most of the time, it was genuine advice. It's totally possible to sell cheap, basic cars in the USA and make a profit, but the key is that those cars need to sell. Companies have tried for years to make the formula work. The Versa, Mirage, Fiesta, and Fit were all basic, no frills transportation, but the only one left is the Versa. I think it's hypocritical of people who don't own one of those (preferably that they bought new) to complain about lack of basic cars in the USA. If you weren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary to drive a basic car, why should you complain about other people not making the same sacrifice? > But my slightly-conspiratorial view is also that companies want to engage in a kind of "customer indoctrination", Or...Vehicles exist at a high enough price point that price/performance is a key driver of value. Spending more on a larger, more capable vehicle makes sense if you plan to use it for the next 15 years. Transaction costs on cars are insane. So if one buy small, then trade up as one needs, then it's going to be much more expensive in the long run than just going big the first time. Barring pickup trucks, the best selling vehicles in the USA are all pretty much mid-level, family-focused transportation: Rav4, CRV, Rogue, Camry. These are big enough to haul a family, but not loaded to the gills with luxury appointments.
- toast0 4y ago
  > The problem is entirely that the vast majority of new car buyers don't want "basic cars." Mostly, I'd like to buy a basic car, but in the US, you've mostly got to buy off the lot, and basic cars aren't well stocked; maybe they don't sell as fast so dealers don't stock them, maybe they don't make as much margin so dealers don't stock them, either way, they're not there so you can't buy them. You might be able to convince a dealer to order it, but then you're usually not going to get any of the promotions, and it's not worth waiting 2-3 months and paying more so you don't have to get the features you don't want.
asdff 4y ago
I think case in point with this is the engine bay cover that a lot of cars have these days. To me these sorts of design elements are useless costs unless they exist for these two reasons: either to scare off the curious from ever seeing the full beast, or to make it annoying enough to repair for the handy person who after seeing the amount of labor required for what used to be a trivial repair in older cars, simply opts for taking it to the service center because they lack time or an engine lift or any proprietary tooling.
- aembleton 4y ago
  Or to reduce noise and vibration
  - asdff 4y ago
    I can't imagine they reduce a significant amount. I've driven some more recent cars that did not have these covers and they weren't any louder or anything. Most noise comes from your exhaust, if you don't believe it just take off your muffler and see what happens.
dfxm12 4y ago
It's not really a conspiracy. Even setting aside all the ads/product placement for SUVs and trucks, you can't really go to a dealership and expect them to have any make/model, like types of jeans at a levi's store. You can only buy what they have for sale, which is big autos with high profit margins. The big 3 automakers in the US simply aren't making smaller cars like they used to. "“You know, carmakers always say they build what people want. But they never mention the fact that they spend billions to tell them what they want. It wasn’t just that consumers spontaneously desired a truck that was as big as a house. No, that was a gradual process. And it has been pushed by the automakers primarily because bigger equals more profit.”" https://www.marketplace.org/2018/04/26/business/ford-motor-company-getting-out-car-business/ https://www.marketplace.org/2018/04/26/business/ford-motor-c...

ninth_ant 4y ago

It doesn’t require any conspiratorial thinking. If the math says that the company will lose sales to higher-margin products by offering low-margin ones, it’s a simple calculation to make the most profitable choice. Of course, potential consumers could switch to a cheaper product from another manufacturer — in a sufficiently free market the unfulfilled demand for the low-margin option should be enough warrant a new entrant if the market is big enough. TLDR if enough people wanted a simple car, someone would make it even if the existing companies don’t want to.

aae42 4y ago
Like an old thinkpad
Sevii 4y ago
They already manufacture he toyota hilux at scale yet you can't buy it in America.
- notahacker 4y ago
  Sounds like that underlines the OP's point. Toyota makes more profit in the US on a Tacoma designed for US tastes and price points. The US demand for Hiluxes isn't enough to either persuade Toyota to add it to their US line or importers to pay the import tariff.
rhino369 4y ago
I'm not sure where I read it, but Toyota apparently saves money in the USA by making optional features included in the base model. In the 90's and early 00's, US companies would churn out base models with crank windows, manual transmissions, etc. Toyota found it was cheaper to engineer/build cars with fewer options, especially one's that everyone chose anyway. And customers didn't feel nickle and dimed. That makes sense to me. That's part of why the Model T was so cheap.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >Toyota found it was cheaper to engineer/build cars with fewer options, especially one's that everyone chose anyway It's easy when you're Toyota and the overwhelming majority of your customers are middle class on up consumers. When you're Nissan or Chrysler and you NEED to offer low MSRP stuff so your customers can just barely qualify for the loan or you're Ford and you NEED to offer base spec stuff for the fleet customers it's not so easy.

DoneWithAllThat 4y ago

It’s kind of crazy how many things are mandated now that weren’t 20 years ago. Abs, traction control, airbags for both driver and passenger, rear camera (which means a screen to view it is also mandated), more and more emissions controls, etc. Not saying all or most of these are bad things but the number of expensive electronic and mechanical add-ons legislated into every vehicle makes it basically impossible to make a “basic” car.

pas 4y ago
And despite all that more people are dying on the roads, and there are more cars on the road (290 million around August, ) ... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33765179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33765179 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- adventured 4y ago
  The US is getting worse at pretty much everything. It's a long-term, comprehensive cultural erosion that stretches from mainstreet to DC.
  - pas 4y ago
    > cultural erosion Meh. US culture was always a bit too simplistic, from homesteading the manifest destiny to "USSR has fallen, democracy won" and finally with "first black president elected, racism officially over guys", and now it seems society entered a post-modernist phase. I mean the obvious fallacies[0] of these oversimplifications are getting the spotlight culturally. And it's mighty polarizing. One one hand it's too much for some people and on the other hand it's still nothing substantial for others. [0] Yes, the USSR has fallen, but Putin built a cleptocracy, also here comes China. Oh, yes Obama got elected and the ACA is nice, but it hardly moved the needle for millions of people. The benefits of half a century of global and domestic changes concentrated in the top ~30%, and the drawbacks hit the bottom ~30%, and weaponized selfishness, shortsightedness, and radical demagoguery (ie. ingroup vs outgroup populism, both the eat-the-rich and the republiklan variety) are on the rise again, because social media maximizes engagement.
- 4y ago

GLGirty 4y ago

That doesn't sound conspiratorial at all. All sorts of features drift from being 'luxury items' to 'no one will buy a car without it.' In my life time time this has happened with air conditioning, power windows, heated seats. To say nothing of mandated safety features. I think the way auto makers have 'trained' their customers is by removing the granularity of customization. Back in the day, every possible option could be tweaked when you ordered a new car. I knew a family that ordered their van with (standard) upholstery seats in the front, but cheaper vinyl seats in the back (because small kids with drinks). You can't cherry pick features now, you just get 3 or 4 trim packages: base / standard / luxury / luxury + sport. And base is so punishingly sparse it only exists to lower the 'starting at' price in ads. And that level of indoctrination is nothing compared to the 60 years long campaign to keep most urban development zoned as car-centric sprawl.

mywittyname 4y ago

The problem is entirely that the vast majority of new car buyers don't want "basic cars." Even car enthusiasts, who talk endlessly about how simple cars are better, will point out how poor of a deal a new "basic" car is compared to a used luxury car. Jalopnik and the like used to constantly run articles like, "Why buy a new Honda Civic when you can get this 2012 Infiniti G35 for the same price?!!?" Sometimes they were tongue-in-cheek, featuring something like an Maserati, but most of the time, it was genuine advice. It's totally possible to sell cheap, basic cars in the USA and make a profit, but the key is that those cars need to sell. Companies have tried for years to make the formula work. The Versa, Mirage, Fiesta, and Fit were all basic, no frills transportation, but the only one left is the Versa. I think it's hypocritical of people who don't own one of those (preferably that they bought new) to complain about lack of basic cars in the USA. If you weren't willing to make the sacrifices necessary to drive a basic car, why should you complain about other people not making the same sacrifice? > But my slightly-conspiratorial view is also that companies want to engage in a kind of "customer indoctrination", Or...Vehicles exist at a high enough price point that price/performance is a key driver of value. Spending more on a larger, more capable vehicle makes sense if you plan to use it for the next 15 years. Transaction costs on cars are insane. So if one buy small, then trade up as one needs, then it's going to be much more expensive in the long run than just going big the first time. Barring pickup trucks, the best selling vehicles in the USA are all pretty much mid-level, family-focused transportation: Rav4, CRV, Rogue, Camry. These are big enough to haul a family, but not loaded to the gills with luxury appointments.

toast0 4y ago
> The problem is entirely that the vast majority of new car buyers don't want "basic cars." Mostly, I'd like to buy a basic car, but in the US, you've mostly got to buy off the lot, and basic cars aren't well stocked; maybe they don't sell as fast so dealers don't stock them, maybe they don't make as much margin so dealers don't stock them, either way, they're not there so you can't buy them. You might be able to convince a dealer to order it, but then you're usually not going to get any of the promotions, and it's not worth waiting 2-3 months and paying more so you don't have to get the features you don't want.

asdff 4y ago

I think case in point with this is the engine bay cover that a lot of cars have these days. To me these sorts of design elements are useless costs unless they exist for these two reasons: either to scare off the curious from ever seeing the full beast, or to make it annoying enough to repair for the handy person who after seeing the amount of labor required for what used to be a trivial repair in older cars, simply opts for taking it to the service center because they lack time or an engine lift or any proprietary tooling.

aembleton 4y ago
Or to reduce noise and vibration
- asdff 4y ago
  I can't imagine they reduce a significant amount. I've driven some more recent cars that did not have these covers and they weren't any louder or anything. Most noise comes from your exhaust, if you don't believe it just take off your muffler and see what happens.

dfxm12 4y ago

It's not really a conspiracy. Even setting aside all the ads/product placement for SUVs and trucks, you can't really go to a dealership and expect them to have any make/model, like types of jeans at a levi's store. You can only buy what they have for sale, which is big autos with high profit margins. The big 3 automakers in the US simply aren't making smaller cars like they used to. "“You know, carmakers always say they build what people want. But they never mention the fact that they spend billions to tell them what they want. It wasn’t just that consumers spontaneously desired a truck that was as big as a house. No, that was a gradual process. And it has been pushed by the automakers primarily because bigger equals more profit.”" https://www.marketplace.org/2018/04/26/business/ford-motor-company-getting-out-car-business/ https://www.marketplace.org/2018/04/26/business/ford-motor-c...