8 ms·

Americans can no longer afford their cars

34 points by jbrins1 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
vdaea 3y ago
Neither can Europeans - even the cheapest cars are around 15k€, which is like a year of salary in some countries of the EU. You can't buy cheaper, older cars because they don't let you in the city with them. Fuck poor people. So basically they are telling you to fuck off and stay at home or something.
- iknowstuff 3y ago
  Turns out cars don’t belong in cities, so efforts are made to undo the damage of 1960s car centric urban planning. That includes disincentivizing car ownership in cities in favor of bike lanes and transit. https://m.youtube.com/c/notjustbikes https://m.youtube.com/c/notjustbikes has some great content about the issue. TLDR: too much space wasted, too many deaths, too much noise, pollution, unpleasant neighborhoods, never-ending traffic leading to hours of labor wasted, lower tax base due to parking, sprawl, higher healthcare costs, lower access to services, extremely expensive infrastructure, etc
  - vdaea 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - iknowstuff 3y ago
      Feel free to construct a cohesive argument
- nemo44x 3y ago
  It’s funny how poor people are always the victims in these schemes. In the USA many places let people in electric cars ,that mainly only rich people could afford, into the carpool lanes so they could travel without congestion. Of course the poor bastard in the 16 year old beater had to sit in traffic as they traveled to their second low paying job. If anything we should let high emissions cars access to low congestion lanes so they spend less time polluting.
  - qball 3y ago
    >It’s funny how poor people are always the victims in these schemes. Working as intended.
  - Gibbon1 3y ago
    It's worse than that. If you're rich you can pay to use the 'car pool' lane to get down to the googleplex.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    > If anything we should let high emissions cars access to low congestion lanes so they spend less time polluting. That's excellent thinking. I do wonder though if the number of high emissions cars isn't such that those 'low congestion lanes' would immediately become congested. Personally I don't think any kind of vehicle once approved for road-worthiness should get an advantage over other road-worthy vehicles. Especially not if it ends up being a wealth inequality thing in disguise.
- eesmith 3y ago
  Which cities are doing this which don't have good mass transit options as one of the "or something" ways to get into town?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  In 1965 in the UK average annual income was about 750 GBP [1]. A medium priced car was about 700 GBP [2]. Sounds pretty similar to the situation you describe today. I suspect that in the countries where annual income is only 15 kEUR now that in 1965 hardly anyone could afford a car at all. At least in the UK the reason people can't afford a car might have more to do with the price of housing reducing their disposable income. [1] https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/ukearncpi/result2.php https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/ukearncpi/result2.ph... [2] https://www.retrowow.co.uk/transport/60s/motoring/60s_cars_cost.php https://www.retrowow.co.uk/transport/60s/motoring/60s_cars_c...
  - vdaea 3y ago
    What exactly is the argument here? That since in 1965 people could barely afford a car it's okay if now we've regressed to the point where 60 years later people can now again barely afford a car?
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      The argument is that from a purchasing power perspective the price of cars in Europe has been more-or-less constant over the years. I think that they've gone up a bit, actually, but you get a lot more car for your money now than you did in the 60's and the 70's. Those cars were death traps, high maintenance and roadside breakdowns were very common.
      - vdaea 3y ago
        Which is not true since car prices have dramatically risen these last years.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        Prices in an absolute sense will always rise, especially when inflation is high but you have to compensate for purchasing power, wages and so on. Effectively, from today to 1970 the price of cars has probably dropped in terms of what you get for your money and that includes 'these last years'. When looking at EVs it is true that they are still more expensive, but then again, they didn't exist at all back in the 70's so we can't really compare, and as volumes ramp up the price will come down. The bigger issue will be to match growing grid capacity to growing number of EVs because if those too get too far out of phase there won't be enough power available in some locations.
nine_zeros 3y ago
It is time for companies to bring prices down or for competitors to enter the market with lower prices. Enough is enough. The current set of executives and shareholders need to take a cut.
MattGaiser 3y ago
> at least if they're following standard budgeting advice Well, many don't. I would be curious what percentage Americans are actually spending on their cars and whether it is actually as little car as they truly need. Monthly payments might be that low if they are spread out enough. > That means that more than 60 percent of American households currently cannot afford to buy a new car, based on Census data. Would be curious what the car dealer financing agents have to say about that, as there are 120 month car notes now.
- hypothesis 3y ago
  > whether it is actually as little car as they truly need Part of the reason why everyone is buying an SUV instead of a small sedan, is that you just feel unsafe driving next to a jacked up truck, nevermind a Cybertruck. There is a ton of YouTube videos that will readily show that one have no chance against those in an unfortunate encounter…
  - iknowstuff 3y ago
    As if a cybertruck is somehow more dangerous than other trucks? It’s neither the heaviest, nor does it have the highest hood (the #1 pedestrian death rate predictor). Trucks are awful but CT is not the biggest offender lol.
  - FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
    It's an arms race. People are being killed. Ban air bags in SUVs. Mandate a driver-facing spike in the middle of the steering wheel.
- chasd00 3y ago
  yeah with those ridiculous loans a car becomes dramatically more expensive while appearing to be affordable. It's very triggering to me when I ask a salesman about the price of a car and they reply with "what do you want your monthly payment to be?". Interest rates and those long term auto loans are just gas on the debt fire.
  - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
solarpunk 3y ago
I've given up my car for over a year now. I put roughly 200 miles on my bike every month, and I utilize transit when unwilling/unable to bike. It's very stress-free not needing to park/store, insure, and maintain a machine that largely sits idle. I can do most bike maintenance myself, and for anything I can't manage myself, there's a half-dozen bike mechanics within a 10 minute bus ride of my apartment. I've also never been healthier.
- beaeglebeached 3y ago
  If everyone does that the system collapsed, as you're free riding on gas and registration fees that fund road you bike on.
  - Pet_Ant 3y ago
    Because the wear and tear of a bicycle on a road is anywhere near that of a car? Roads would last forever if they only had bicycles on them. A study by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) determined that the road damage caused by a single 18-wheeler was equivalent to the damage caused by 9,600 cars. ... The study found that essentially, road damage was related to the 4th power of the relative loads. https://www.denenapoints.com/relationship-vehicle-weight-road-damage/ https://www.denenapoints.com/relationship-vehicle-weight-roa...
    - beaeglebeached 3y ago
      A road, totally unused, still requires construction and maintenance. Even simple walkway last 50-100 years. My claim is not the cost of cycle only road would be the same, it is the free-riding aspect vs cost to build and maintain cycling road. What you're citing is only the fraction from axle weight, exclusive of other damage impactful including weathering.
      - Pet_Ant 3y ago
        You would only need to build it once and not resurface and pave it every 5-10 years. So yes we'd still need people to pay for roads. But for the current roads we already paid for, the average car is apparently around 4100 lbs whereas the average bicycle weight is 30 lbs, so 30^4/4100^4 means that a bicyclist should be paying around 1/350,000,000 of the cost comparable to the average car driver... so litterally a rounding error down to zero. If you look at Chernobyl (search "Chernobyl parking lot" https://www.vecteezy.com/photo/3732091-pripyat-ukraine-2021-empty-parking-lot-and-buildings-in-chernobyl https://www.vecteezy.com/photo/3732091-pripyat-ukraine-2021-... ) you'll see even 40 years later with no care paving is actually completely usable.
xnx 3y ago
With modern cars regularly lasting into 300,000 miles, it makes sense that we would see fewer people buying new cars. There are a lot of used cars with plenty of life left in them. Most people also buy used homes instead of new.
- chasd00 3y ago
  a 1-3 year old used car with low'ish miles and decent gas milage is the sweet spot. You save a new car off the assembly line, you save an old car from the junk yard, price is considerably lower than a new car, and it will probably be perfectly functional long after you've paid it off.
- iwanttocomment 3y ago
  This. It's not only reliability at high mileage, but also as they age. Driving a 2012 and a 2014, both seem to still be 100% mechanically and electrically sound without any major repairs, with only minor body dings that are more related to parking lot negligence than engineering. Totally reliable, no major body issues, nothing. In the past, I've never had any other car go more than 8 years without a major repair, some annoying series of endless minor repairs, or the development of annoying behaviors. Things have changed. I can afford a new car, but any car buying on my part is being delayed by these cars being effectively free (with insurance, license and fuel costs, yes) at a point while car prices are high. It's also being delayed by the knowledge that if mainstream cars can be this trouble-free with typical maintenance, I'll need to choose my next car(s) carefully, since I like to buy my cars outright, and will be effectively stuck with it for over a decade, so it has to be something I like much more than these old ones.
- ultrarunner 3y ago
  Do you have any examples of cars that "regularly" last 300,000 miles (480,000 km)? I have an old VW Passat TDI with 300,000 that I am working to restore, but it definitely didn't "last" that long. Our Jetta TDI "lasted" 240,000 miles, but it's definitely on its absolute last legs and not regular. The difference between them is stark: the early 90s Passat is bolted together; the newer Jetta is (was) glued. The Passat has electrical plugs and components can be replaced; the Jetta wiring is largely routed through the unibody (which has been welded shut). Cracked wires (of which there are many) cannot be easily replaced or repaired. It's got bean counters' fingerprints all over it. If anything, I would expect to see the same thing happen in cars as which happened everywhere else in consumer appliances: manufacturing processes are cheapened to the absolute limit of acceptable warranty repairs.
georgeburdell 3y ago
Used market is also bananas. I bought a 2013 Corolla in 2016 for $16k, inclusive of taxes and fees. Carvana took it off my hands early last year for $12.5k
- alphabettsy 3y ago
  The used car market has come down quite a bit since last year, especially since early last year.
- wharvle 3y ago
  Last I heard (admittedly, like 9 months ago) multiple dealerships were willing to buy our 2015 model year Honda Odyssey for more than we paid for it, when we bought it used in 2019. With like 90k more miles on it or something. And of course they'd mark it up farther. WTF. I don't know what we'll do if this van dies. Paying about $20k for that thing already seemed super-expensive for a car, to me.
Slava_Propanei 3y ago
[dead]
xnx 3y ago
Car prices have been falling regularly for the past ~2 years: https://site.manheim.com/en/services/consulting/used-vehicle-value-index.html https://site.manheim.com/en/services/consulting/used-vehicle...
jedberg 3y ago
There is a conflation of factors that have lead to this. 1. Stricter safety and emissions regulations that make new cars more expensive to make. 2. Supply chain issues making new cars more expensive. 3. New cars are expensive so people are holding onto their used cars longer, shrinking that market. 4. Cars are much more computerized than before, so it's hard to fix up old cars and make them work again. 5. Teens used to be able to take auto-shop and learn enough to fix up an old shitbox to use for their first few working years. 6. It's hard to find an old shitbox anymore, even one that is easy to fix, because people are holding onto them until they die. I'm not sure what the solution is here. The safety and emissions regs are there for a reason, but those are what lead to all the other problems. We just need to design our society for fewer cars, but that change will take a while.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- beaeglebeached 3y ago
  Many countries motorbike dominates. I only switched over due to infant safety restraint laws. Yes I lived somewhere in snow, motorcycle works in blizzards too. Really only find motorcycle and heavy trucks useful though. If smug fucks in legislature gon make me have a cage, at least gon get something I can haul large loads with. Car is a weird in-between that inefficiently does both.
- chromatin 3y ago
  > 6. It's hard to find an old shitbox anymore, even one that is easy to fix, because people are holding onto them until they die. It's also been made harder because of the insane Obama-era "Cash for Clunkers" [1] program that massive depleted supply of used vehicles in the US with the purported effect of an economic stimulus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System
  - jedberg 3y ago
    It was billed as a stimulus but it was really an environmental program to get people to exchange for more fuel efficient vehicles. See point 1. :)
ExMachina73 3y ago
The problem is that most Americans view cars as status symbols and want them to be as luxurious as if they're buying a second home. Ironically according to AAA the average American spends about 300hrs a year behind the wheel. In other words about 3.5% of your time is spent actually driving while 96.5% it's garaged or parked. Spend money on a better a bed where you spend 33% of your life and buy a used 2009-2019 Toyota Yaris, agreed to be one of the most reliable commuter cars Toyota has ever made.
- beaeglebeached 3y ago
  Insanely enough a luxury trim is often cheaper than base trim 8+ years used. The target luxury buyer market is vaporized by the time it reaches moderately used.
pasttense01 3y ago
"while used car prices fell by only 2 percent to an average of $31,030." This is simply not true--average used car prices are well under $31,030. They get these high numbers from car dealers who only deal in fairly new used cars as that is what is profitable for them. There are a huge number of much cheaper, older used cars available directly from private parties--on venues like Craigslist.
- chasd00 3y ago
  Also, a used Porsche 911 GT2 RS is a lot more expensive than a used Toyota Corolla. "Average" isn't the right way to look at this.
davkan 3y ago
Just sold my 22 Tacoma for what I bought it for and picked up an 89 hilux with almost 300k on it. I wanted out from the loan and cash on hand for a down payment on a condo. I had planned on gettin a 10 year old Tacoma with moderate miles but the market was so terrible I decided to just buy a truck that was older than me.
AlbertCory 3y ago
> That means that more than 60 percent of American households currently cannot afford to buy a new car, based on Census data. For individuals, the numbers are even worse, with 82 percent of people below the $100,000 line. Did I miss the actual sales figures in this article? Here are some: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/total-vehicle-sales https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/total-vehicle-sal... https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/usa-auto-industry-total-sales-figures/ https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/usa-auto-industry-total-sales-... You don't see a pronounced long-term decline here. It looks like people are buying them anyway.
- ultrarunner 3y ago
  52% increase in US population 1980-2023 vs essentially flat growth in total vehicle sales
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    This might be one case where a very long term look (43 years) is misleading. "Last 10 years" might be more instructive. Cars have gotten much better. Back in 1980 it was very unusual for a car to go 100,000 miles. This data suggests Newsweek has a non-story: the number of carless households has not gone up at all. https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/car-ownership-statistics/ https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/car-ownership-st... https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-transport-challenges/household-vehicles-united-states/ https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-trans... Perhaps a lot of car sales were actually additional cars for a household that already had one or more, and now that desire has been satiated.
taylodl 3y ago
FTA: "In November 2019, the average transaction price for a new vehicle was $38,500." Let's be real, that was unaffordable to most Americans at the time. But, people are also buying what they want, not what they need. You need basic transportation? A used Honda Civic is a great bet. There are lots of used ones, less than 5 years old and many with fewer than 30K miles, available in my area for under $20K.
- chrismcb 3y ago
  Was that hungry really accurate? I bought my last car in 2019 and it was 35k, cheaper than a luxury car but more expensive than the average car. I won't what the median price was? And is that price what people were spending, or the average price of cars that were available?
johnea 3y ago
"But car buyers' preferences have also shifted dramatically to larger trucks and SUVs in the past 10 years or so, and even more towards high-tech and comfort amenities in the form of cameras, sensors, radars and large infotainment screens," Which buyers? Everyone in my circle does NOT want this exact list of features. Where is the $5000 electric city car? Oh, in China. No wonder we need trade embargos...
- pandaman 3y ago
  People in your circle will be aligned with you on many things, that's how they got in your circle in the first place. Here is a list of 10 best selling vehicles in 2022 [0], only two of these are sedans, but both of those come with screens, radars, cameras, and sensors [1,2]. 0. https://www.statista.com/statistics/239229/most-sold-car-models-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/239229/most-sold-car-mod... 1. https://www.caranddriver.com/toyota/camry-2021 https://www.caranddriver.com/toyota/camry-2021 2. https://www.caranddriver.com/toyota/corolla-2021 https://www.caranddriver.com/toyota/corolla-2021
incomingpain 3y ago
The car industry went through an inflection point going on 10 years now. Ford and GM got on board with the changes but changes to a big high momentum corp like that came at a cost. So they have a market cap around $40 billion. Stellantis decided against existing and are dinosaurs. Tesla obviously is the disruptor whose marketcap is >500 billion for sure, probably more legitimately around a trillion. Tesla could issue some new stock and effectively buy both ford and gm. So obviously the car industry is having its pain points. 'afford' is the other side of this equation. Lets compare the USA and Canada. GDP per capita USA: 62,000 Canada: 44,000 That's practically a 50% difference... That's crazy. Households Debt to GDP USA: 70% Canada: 170% That's a huge difference. Greater then 50%. Interest rates are about the same. 5.5% vs 5%. But arguably sky high given we're in a boomer retirement phase and we ought to be negative interest rates. Private Debt to GDP USA: 215% Canada: 270% North Americans cant afford ANYTHING. Not just their cars. Canada's debt to income is 180%. The soft limit of 100% matters a ton. North America is broke...

34 points by jbrins1 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Neither can Europeans - even the cheapest cars are around 15k€, which is like a year of salary in some countries of the EU. You can't buy cheaper, older cars because they don't let you in the city with them. Fuck poor people. So basically they are telling you to fuck off and stay at home or something.

iknowstuff 3y ago
Turns out cars don’t belong in cities, so efforts are made to undo the damage of 1960s car centric urban planning. That includes disincentivizing car ownership in cities in favor of bike lanes and transit. https://m.youtube.com/c/notjustbikes https://m.youtube.com/c/notjustbikes has some great content about the issue. TLDR: too much space wasted, too many deaths, too much noise, pollution, unpleasant neighborhoods, never-ending traffic leading to hours of labor wasted, lower tax base due to parking, sprawl, higher healthcare costs, lower access to services, extremely expensive infrastructure, etc
- vdaea 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - iknowstuff 3y ago
    Feel free to construct a cohesive argument
nemo44x 3y ago
It’s funny how poor people are always the victims in these schemes. In the USA many places let people in electric cars ,that mainly only rich people could afford, into the carpool lanes so they could travel without congestion. Of course the poor bastard in the 16 year old beater had to sit in traffic as they traveled to their second low paying job. If anything we should let high emissions cars access to low congestion lanes so they spend less time polluting.
- qball 3y ago
  >It’s funny how poor people are always the victims in these schemes. Working as intended.
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  It's worse than that. If you're rich you can pay to use the 'car pool' lane to get down to the googleplex.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  > If anything we should let high emissions cars access to low congestion lanes so they spend less time polluting. That's excellent thinking. I do wonder though if the number of high emissions cars isn't such that those 'low congestion lanes' would immediately become congested. Personally I don't think any kind of vehicle once approved for road-worthiness should get an advantage over other road-worthy vehicles. Especially not if it ends up being a wealth inequality thing in disguise.
eesmith 3y ago
Which cities are doing this which don't have good mass transit options as one of the "or something" ways to get into town?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
kwhitefoot 3y ago
In 1965 in the UK average annual income was about 750 GBP [1]. A medium priced car was about 700 GBP [2]. Sounds pretty similar to the situation you describe today. I suspect that in the countries where annual income is only 15 kEUR now that in 1965 hardly anyone could afford a car at all. At least in the UK the reason people can't afford a car might have more to do with the price of housing reducing their disposable income. [1] https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/ukearncpi/result2.php https://www.measuringworth.com/datasets/ukearncpi/result2.ph... [2] https://www.retrowow.co.uk/transport/60s/motoring/60s_cars_cost.php https://www.retrowow.co.uk/transport/60s/motoring/60s_cars_c...
- vdaea 3y ago
  What exactly is the argument here? That since in 1965 people could barely afford a car it's okay if now we've regressed to the point where 60 years later people can now again barely afford a car?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    The argument is that from a purchasing power perspective the price of cars in Europe has been more-or-less constant over the years. I think that they've gone up a bit, actually, but you get a lot more car for your money now than you did in the 60's and the 70's. Those cars were death traps, high maintenance and roadside breakdowns were very common.
    - vdaea 3y ago
      Which is not true since car prices have dramatically risen these last years.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Prices in an absolute sense will always rise, especially when inflation is high but you have to compensate for purchasing power, wages and so on. Effectively, from today to 1970 the price of cars has probably dropped in terms of what you get for your money and that includes 'these last years'. When looking at EVs it is true that they are still more expensive, but then again, they didn't exist at all back in the 70's so we can't really compare, and as volumes ramp up the price will come down. The bigger issue will be to match growing grid capacity to growing number of EVs because if those too get too far out of phase there won't be enough power available in some locations.

nine_zeros 3y ago

It is time for companies to bring prices down or for competitors to enter the market with lower prices. Enough is enough. The current set of executives and shareholders need to take a cut.

MattGaiser 3y ago

> at least if they're following standard budgeting advice Well, many don't. I would be curious what percentage Americans are actually spending on their cars and whether it is actually as little car as they truly need. Monthly payments might be that low if they are spread out enough. > That means that more than 60 percent of American households currently cannot afford to buy a new car, based on Census data. Would be curious what the car dealer financing agents have to say about that, as there are 120 month car notes now.

hypothesis 3y ago
> whether it is actually as little car as they truly need Part of the reason why everyone is buying an SUV instead of a small sedan, is that you just feel unsafe driving next to a jacked up truck, nevermind a Cybertruck. There is a ton of YouTube videos that will readily show that one have no chance against those in an unfortunate encounter…
- iknowstuff 3y ago
  As if a cybertruck is somehow more dangerous than other trucks? It’s neither the heaviest, nor does it have the highest hood (the #1 pedestrian death rate predictor). Trucks are awful but CT is not the biggest offender lol.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
  It's an arms race. People are being killed. Ban air bags in SUVs. Mandate a driver-facing spike in the middle of the steering wheel.
chasd00 3y ago
yeah with those ridiculous loans a car becomes dramatically more expensive while appearing to be affordable. It's very triggering to me when I ask a salesman about the price of a car and they reply with "what do you want your monthly payment to be?". Interest rates and those long term auto loans are just gas on the debt fire.
- 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

solarpunk 3y ago

I've given up my car for over a year now. I put roughly 200 miles on my bike every month, and I utilize transit when unwilling/unable to bike. It's very stress-free not needing to park/store, insure, and maintain a machine that largely sits idle. I can do most bike maintenance myself, and for anything I can't manage myself, there's a half-dozen bike mechanics within a 10 minute bus ride of my apartment. I've also never been healthier.

beaeglebeached 3y ago
If everyone does that the system collapsed, as you're free riding on gas and registration fees that fund road you bike on.
- Pet_Ant 3y ago
  Because the wear and tear of a bicycle on a road is anywhere near that of a car? Roads would last forever if they only had bicycles on them. A study by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) determined that the road damage caused by a single 18-wheeler was equivalent to the damage caused by 9,600 cars. ... The study found that essentially, road damage was related to the 4th power of the relative loads. https://www.denenapoints.com/relationship-vehicle-weight-road-damage/ https://www.denenapoints.com/relationship-vehicle-weight-roa...
  - beaeglebeached 3y ago
    A road, totally unused, still requires construction and maintenance. Even simple walkway last 50-100 years. My claim is not the cost of cycle only road would be the same, it is the free-riding aspect vs cost to build and maintain cycling road. What you're citing is only the fraction from axle weight, exclusive of other damage impactful including weathering.
    - Pet_Ant 3y ago
      You would only need to build it once and not resurface and pave it every 5-10 years. So yes we'd still need people to pay for roads. But for the current roads we already paid for, the average car is apparently around 4100 lbs whereas the average bicycle weight is 30 lbs, so 30^4/4100^4 means that a bicyclist should be paying around 1/350,000,000 of the cost comparable to the average car driver... so litterally a rounding error down to zero. If you look at Chernobyl (search "Chernobyl parking lot" https://www.vecteezy.com/photo/3732091-pripyat-ukraine-2021-empty-parking-lot-and-buildings-in-chernobyl https://www.vecteezy.com/photo/3732091-pripyat-ukraine-2021-... ) you'll see even 40 years later with no care paving is actually completely usable.

xnx 3y ago

With modern cars regularly lasting into 300,000 miles, it makes sense that we would see fewer people buying new cars. There are a lot of used cars with plenty of life left in them. Most people also buy used homes instead of new.

chasd00 3y ago
a 1-3 year old used car with low'ish miles and decent gas milage is the sweet spot. You save a new car off the assembly line, you save an old car from the junk yard, price is considerably lower than a new car, and it will probably be perfectly functional long after you've paid it off.
iwanttocomment 3y ago
This. It's not only reliability at high mileage, but also as they age. Driving a 2012 and a 2014, both seem to still be 100% mechanically and electrically sound without any major repairs, with only minor body dings that are more related to parking lot negligence than engineering. Totally reliable, no major body issues, nothing. In the past, I've never had any other car go more than 8 years without a major repair, some annoying series of endless minor repairs, or the development of annoying behaviors. Things have changed. I can afford a new car, but any car buying on my part is being delayed by these cars being effectively free (with insurance, license and fuel costs, yes) at a point while car prices are high. It's also being delayed by the knowledge that if mainstream cars can be this trouble-free with typical maintenance, I'll need to choose my next car(s) carefully, since I like to buy my cars outright, and will be effectively stuck with it for over a decade, so it has to be something I like much more than these old ones.
ultrarunner 3y ago
Do you have any examples of cars that "regularly" last 300,000 miles (480,000 km)? I have an old VW Passat TDI with 300,000 that I am working to restore, but it definitely didn't "last" that long. Our Jetta TDI "lasted" 240,000 miles, but it's definitely on its absolute last legs and not regular. The difference between them is stark: the early 90s Passat is bolted together; the newer Jetta is (was) glued. The Passat has electrical plugs and components can be replaced; the Jetta wiring is largely routed through the unibody (which has been welded shut). Cracked wires (of which there are many) cannot be easily replaced or repaired. It's got bean counters' fingerprints all over it. If anything, I would expect to see the same thing happen in cars as which happened everywhere else in consumer appliances: manufacturing processes are cheapened to the absolute limit of acceptable warranty repairs.

georgeburdell 3y ago

Used market is also bananas. I bought a 2013 Corolla in 2016 for $16k, inclusive of taxes and fees. Carvana took it off my hands early last year for $12.5k

alphabettsy 3y ago
The used car market has come down quite a bit since last year, especially since early last year.
wharvle 3y ago
Last I heard (admittedly, like 9 months ago) multiple dealerships were willing to buy our 2015 model year Honda Odyssey for more than we paid for it, when we bought it used in 2019. With like 90k more miles on it or something. And of course they'd mark it up farther. WTF. I don't know what we'll do if this van dies. Paying about $20k for that thing already seemed super-expensive for a car, to me.

Slava_Propanei 3y ago

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xnx 3y ago

Car prices have been falling regularly for the past ~2 years: https://site.manheim.com/en/services/consulting/used-vehicle-value-index.html https://site.manheim.com/en/services/consulting/used-vehicle...

jedberg 3y ago

There is a conflation of factors that have lead to this. 1. Stricter safety and emissions regulations that make new cars more expensive to make. 2. Supply chain issues making new cars more expensive. 3. New cars are expensive so people are holding onto their used cars longer, shrinking that market. 4. Cars are much more computerized than before, so it's hard to fix up old cars and make them work again. 5. Teens used to be able to take auto-shop and learn enough to fix up an old shitbox to use for their first few working years. 6. It's hard to find an old shitbox anymore, even one that is easy to fix, because people are holding onto them until they die. I'm not sure what the solution is here. The safety and emissions regs are there for a reason, but those are what lead to all the other problems. We just need to design our society for fewer cars, but that change will take a while.

deleted 3y ago
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beaeglebeached 3y ago
Many countries motorbike dominates. I only switched over due to infant safety restraint laws. Yes I lived somewhere in snow, motorcycle works in blizzards too. Really only find motorcycle and heavy trucks useful though. If smug fucks in legislature gon make me have a cage, at least gon get something I can haul large loads with. Car is a weird in-between that inefficiently does both.
chromatin 3y ago
> 6. It's hard to find an old shitbox anymore, even one that is easy to fix, because people are holding onto them until they die. It's also been made harder because of the insane Obama-era "Cash for Clunkers" [1] program that massive depleted supply of used vehicles in the US with the purported effect of an economic stimulus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Allowance_Rebate_System
- jedberg 3y ago
  It was billed as a stimulus but it was really an environmental program to get people to exchange for more fuel efficient vehicles. See point 1. :)

ExMachina73 3y ago

The problem is that most Americans view cars as status symbols and want them to be as luxurious as if they're buying a second home. Ironically according to AAA the average American spends about 300hrs a year behind the wheel. In other words about 3.5% of your time is spent actually driving while 96.5% it's garaged or parked. Spend money on a better a bed where you spend 33% of your life and buy a used 2009-2019 Toyota Yaris, agreed to be one of the most reliable commuter cars Toyota has ever made.

beaeglebeached 3y ago
Insanely enough a luxury trim is often cheaper than base trim 8+ years used. The target luxury buyer market is vaporized by the time it reaches moderately used.

pasttense01 3y ago

"while used car prices fell by only 2 percent to an average of $31,030." This is simply not true--average used car prices are well under $31,030. They get these high numbers from car dealers who only deal in fairly new used cars as that is what is profitable for them. There are a huge number of much cheaper, older used cars available directly from private parties--on venues like Craigslist.

chasd00 3y ago
Also, a used Porsche 911 GT2 RS is a lot more expensive than a used Toyota Corolla. "Average" isn't the right way to look at this.

davkan 3y ago

Just sold my 22 Tacoma for what I bought it for and picked up an 89 hilux with almost 300k on it. I wanted out from the loan and cash on hand for a down payment on a condo. I had planned on gettin a 10 year old Tacoma with moderate miles but the market was so terrible I decided to just buy a truck that was older than me.

AlbertCory 3y ago

> That means that more than 60 percent of American households currently cannot afford to buy a new car, based on Census data. For individuals, the numbers are even worse, with 82 percent of people below the $100,000 line. Did I miss the actual sales figures in this article? Here are some: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/total-vehicle-sales https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/total-vehicle-sal... https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/usa-auto-industry-total-sales-figures/ https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/usa-auto-industry-total-sales-... You don't see a pronounced long-term decline here. It looks like people are buying them anyway.

ultrarunner 3y ago
52% increase in US population 1980-2023 vs essentially flat growth in total vehicle sales
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  This might be one case where a very long term look (43 years) is misleading. "Last 10 years" might be more instructive. Cars have gotten much better. Back in 1980 it was very unusual for a car to go 100,000 miles. This data suggests Newsweek has a non-story: the number of carless households has not gone up at all. https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/car-ownership-statistics/ https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/car-ownership-st... https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-transport-challenges/household-vehicles-united-states/ https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-trans... Perhaps a lot of car sales were actually additional cars for a household that already had one or more, and now that desire has been satiated.

taylodl 3y ago

FTA: "In November 2019, the average transaction price for a new vehicle was $38,500." Let's be real, that was unaffordable to most Americans at the time. But, people are also buying what they want, not what they need. You need basic transportation? A used Honda Civic is a great bet. There are lots of used ones, less than 5 years old and many with fewer than 30K miles, available in my area for under $20K.

chrismcb 3y ago
Was that hungry really accurate? I bought my last car in 2019 and it was 35k, cheaper than a luxury car but more expensive than the average car. I won't what the median price was? And is that price what people were spending, or the average price of cars that were available?

johnea 3y ago

"But car buyers' preferences have also shifted dramatically to larger trucks and SUVs in the past 10 years or so, and even more towards high-tech and comfort amenities in the form of cameras, sensors, radars and large infotainment screens," Which buyers? Everyone in my circle does NOT want this exact list of features. Where is the $5000 electric city car? Oh, in China. No wonder we need trade embargos...

pandaman 3y ago
People in your circle will be aligned with you on many things, that's how they got in your circle in the first place. Here is a list of 10 best selling vehicles in 2022 [0], only two of these are sedans, but both of those come with screens, radars, cameras, and sensors [1,2]. 0. https://www.statista.com/statistics/239229/most-sold-car-models-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/239229/most-sold-car-mod... 1. https://www.caranddriver.com/toyota/camry-2021 https://www.caranddriver.com/toyota/camry-2021 2. https://www.caranddriver.com/toyota/corolla-2021 https://www.caranddriver.com/toyota/corolla-2021

incomingpain 3y ago

The car industry went through an inflection point going on 10 years now. Ford and GM got on board with the changes but changes to a big high momentum corp like that came at a cost. So they have a market cap around $40 billion. Stellantis decided against existing and are dinosaurs. Tesla obviously is the disruptor whose marketcap is >500 billion for sure, probably more legitimately around a trillion. Tesla could issue some new stock and effectively buy both ford and gm. So obviously the car industry is having its pain points. 'afford' is the other side of this equation. Lets compare the USA and Canada. GDP per capita USA: 62,000 Canada: 44,000 That's practically a 50% difference... That's crazy. Households Debt to GDP USA: 70% Canada: 170% That's a huge difference. Greater then 50%. Interest rates are about the same. 5.5% vs 5%. But arguably sky high given we're in a boomer retirement phase and we ought to be negative interest rates. Private Debt to GDP USA: 215% Canada: 270% North Americans cant afford ANYTHING. Not just their cars. Canada's debt to income is 180%. The soft limit of 100% matters a ton. North America is broke...