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Why there are no $3k-$4k cars? I am sure most people need cheaper cars, not electric cars, or AI cars, or cars with mobile app and telemetry. Those are toys for

Why there are no $3k-$4k cars? I am sure most people need cheaper cars, not electric cars, or AI cars, or cars with mobile app and telemetry. Those are toys for the rich.

jjk166 2y ago
$3000 for a 2000lb car is $1.50 per pound on average after manufacturing, retail. That's absurd. Raw aluminum is nearly that price. The cost of raw materials alone for a typical US car are over $4000 before any labor has gone into it. The only way you're gonna get a $3000 car is if everyone involved with the production from the mine to the dealership is working for pennies.
johnea 2y ago
I'd like a $4K electric car
- m463 2y ago
  you can get old used leafs or similar I've seen many few year old used tesla 3s ~ $20k
- desmond373 2y ago
  Ive been playing with the idea for a kit electric car for a while. It would be cheap but still not that cheap. The expensive part is the battery
- jraines 2y ago
  I would joke that that’s a golf cart but the carts I see for sale around here (where you can drive them on roads) are a good amount more
- dogmatism 2y ago
  Got a fairly low mileage Chevy Bolt for 11 Deals are out there if you're not too picky
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  Which is less than a decent electric bike. Good luck.
Bjartr 2y ago
I think it's at least in part because you have to meet a whole lot of regulations to make a car street legal. You can start with a simple 3k vehicle, but by time you've made the changes needed to pass all the requirements it'll be over 10k. It's worth noting that the majority of these regulations are at least nominally about safety.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  A lot of the regulations are also about emissions, so conveniently that goes away with electric cars. But then your problem is that the battery is expensive. For now.
  - asadotzler 2y ago
    Emissions regulations add little to the cost of any one car or model. There's no secret sauce to catalytic converters or computerized fuel injectors that everyone's powertrains all copy or share. The cost of distinct models is mostly in crash survivability and related regulated safety systems.
    - matt-attack 2y ago
      So why not just reuse the known design that works. No one said this proposed $3k car had to look different? This whole argument is bunk. Just settle on a design (perhaps borne out of your higher end model) let it trickle down your product line (unchanged) other than stripping useless gadgets, etc. Why do people assume those in the market for a $3k car care that it have a brand new body style?
TylerE 2y ago
The exist, in markets like India. They're death traps, not meeting Western standards of even 30 years ago.
- Baeocystin 2y ago
  How do the modern Chinese $10k cars compare? Genuine question.
  - Animats 2y ago
    The BYD Seagull, at US$11,000 before the new 100% tariff, gets decent reviews.[1] [1] https://insideevs.com/news/710364/byd-detroit-import-seagull-caresoft/ https://insideevs.com/news/710364/byd-detroit-import-seagull...
    - theamk 2y ago
      > This imported Seagull wasn’t made to pass U.S. crash standards Interesting but not something one would want to drive.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - Modified3019 2y ago
    China is a difficult place to try to pry factual information out of, but I wouldn’t be keen to go that route. I’ve seen some indication on social media of an elevated amount of severe failures of materials and/or poor welding in new vehicles from China. This leads me to suspect the usual corner cutting or outright fraud on material quality that makes China so risky to do business with. It is difficult enough to hold western automakers to account for failures, I would not want to attempt to need legal recourse from Chinese companies.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    The BYD Seagull meets European safety regulations.
bell-cot 2y ago
$3k-$4k cars, or enclosed golf carts? In the first world, I'd say: - the usual Big Government stuff (industry-specific regulatory, bureaucratic, & legal moats) - brutal economies of scale for highly complex large manufactured goods - public-good-doesn't-count-for-shit capitalism That last one is especially brutal. If you could make $20K by selling one $80k SUV, vs. $20K by selling 100 $3k cars (each with a $200 profit) - then it's damned obvious which way you'd want to go. From marketing, to staffing your showrooms, to sales paperwork, to customer complaints, to the long-term legal and forced-recall liabilities - trying to sell the 100 affordable little cars is a 100X worse choice for you.
stock_toaster 2y ago
I wish there were some domestic manufacturers of Kei type cars[1] and, even more so, trucks[2] here in the US (or that it was cheaper and easier to import and license). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_truck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_truck
- zardo 2y ago
  They are encouraged by regulation in Japan. Lower tax, registration fees, and insurance. Also the requirement in some areas to have off-street parking to register a car is waved.
invalidator 2y ago
Safety regulations. "A Car" needs to be able to operate safely on highways at 60+ MPH. That means: horsepower, braking, crumple zones, airbags, crash testing, etc. By the time you add those up you've already exceeded that budget, and you only have a glorified rickshaw. People want doors, roll-down windows, etc, which all add cost... they're going to be better served with a used car in that price range. The closest things that exist are Neighborhood Electric Vehicles. They're basically golf carts with seatbelts, allowed to operate on city streets up to 25 MPH. It would be great if the US had something like Japan's Kei Cars. Those are $10k and up, fast and safe enough for local highway use (say 50MPH)... It works in Japan because urban traffic tends to be low speed. They are less practical in the US where freeways run through every city, but they'd still work for many people. They would require significant regulation changes.
- derekp7 2y ago
  Would the 3-wheel tadpole configuration vehicles (technically classified as motorcycles) fit the bill? I see them on the road frequently -- they have seats and car type controls, 2-seaters, some are fully enclosed too. I think this type is called an autocycle.
  - invalidator 2y ago
    Maybe? I think they're mostly used as sports vehicles currently, but it might be possible to squeeze a more practical vehicle into that class.
palata 2y ago
With that budget you get an electric bike, though. That's a small, cheap, healthy car.
- willcipriano 2y ago
  "The reason you can't have a cheaper car is it needs many crash safety features! It would be unsafe! Ride a bike instead!" How does the bike do in a crash?
  - pornel 2y ago
    That's why cyclists advocate for protected lanes and separate bike paths, instead of infrastructure made of paint.
    - xhkkffbf 2y ago
      Do you realize that at least half of the bike accidents don't involve cars? Getting rid of the cars won't get rid of the dangers of the two wheeled, unstable machines that frequently toss the riders when the brakes lock. https://discerningcyclist.com/bicycle-accident-statistics/ https://discerningcyclist.com/bicycle-accident-statistics/
      - pornel 2y ago
        Page 18 of that report shows 80% of injuries are from cars/trucks/motorcycles. People can still faceplant badly, but getting rid of cars will avoid the vast majority of fatal crashes.
        xhkkffbf 2y ago
        I'm not sure where you're getting this. This link doesn't have pages and it gathers information from a variety of sources. The top of the report clearly says, "50% of crashes are a single bicycle accident (HOPE)" and "21% of crashes are a bicycle-bicycle crash (HOPE)". Is it possible that only 29% involve cars?
tim333 2y ago
They tried producing one of those - the Tata Nano, starting from like $2k but 3 or 4k with extras in India. It wasn't a big success selling 7500 a year against the 250k they were hoping for. I guess it was a bit rubbish even for the Indian market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano
asadotzler 2y ago
A Ford Pinto in 1971 was $1,919 which is $15,000 in today's dollars. A Yugo GV in 1984 was $3,990 which is $12,000 in today's dollars. A Chevy Spark in 2013 was $12,995 which is over $17,000 in today's dollars. Car companies can keep up with US regulations at about the $15,000 price point. Below that is losing money. A Nissan Versa or Mitsubishi Mirage in 2024 cost about $16,000 which is right in line with the Ford, the Yugo, and the Chevy econo-rides of the past. $3K-$4K wouldn't build you a crash regulation compliant unibody shell, much less a full car. If a major maker went balls out to build cheap and still be legal to sell in the US, they might be able to get the price down to $10K-$12K and still break even, but below that is a fantasy. Physics simply will not bend any further.

Why there are no $3k-$4k cars? I am sure most people need cheaper cars, not electric cars, or AI cars, or cars with mobile app and telemetry. Those are toys for the rich.

jjk166 2y ago

$3000 for a 2000lb car is $1.50 per pound on average after manufacturing, retail. That's absurd. Raw aluminum is nearly that price. The cost of raw materials alone for a typical US car are over $4000 before any labor has gone into it. The only way you're gonna get a $3000 car is if everyone involved with the production from the mine to the dealership is working for pennies.

johnea 2y ago

I'd like a $4K electric car

m463 2y ago
you can get old used leafs or similar I've seen many few year old used tesla 3s ~ $20k
desmond373 2y ago
Ive been playing with the idea for a kit electric car for a while. It would be cheap but still not that cheap. The expensive part is the battery
jraines 2y ago
I would joke that that’s a golf cart but the carts I see for sale around here (where you can drive them on roads) are a good amount more
dogmatism 2y ago
Got a fairly low mileage Chevy Bolt for 11 Deals are out there if you're not too picky
dzhiurgis 2y ago
Which is less than a decent electric bike. Good luck.

Bjartr 2y ago

I think it's at least in part because you have to meet a whole lot of regulations to make a car street legal. You can start with a simple 3k vehicle, but by time you've made the changes needed to pass all the requirements it'll be over 10k. It's worth noting that the majority of these regulations are at least nominally about safety.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
A lot of the regulations are also about emissions, so conveniently that goes away with electric cars. But then your problem is that the battery is expensive. For now.
- asadotzler 2y ago
  Emissions regulations add little to the cost of any one car or model. There's no secret sauce to catalytic converters or computerized fuel injectors that everyone's powertrains all copy or share. The cost of distinct models is mostly in crash survivability and related regulated safety systems.
  - matt-attack 2y ago
    So why not just reuse the known design that works. No one said this proposed $3k car had to look different? This whole argument is bunk. Just settle on a design (perhaps borne out of your higher end model) let it trickle down your product line (unchanged) other than stripping useless gadgets, etc. Why do people assume those in the market for a $3k car care that it have a brand new body style?

TylerE 2y ago

The exist, in markets like India. They're death traps, not meeting Western standards of even 30 years ago.

Baeocystin 2y ago
How do the modern Chinese $10k cars compare? Genuine question.
- Animats 2y ago
  The BYD Seagull, at US$11,000 before the new 100% tariff, gets decent reviews.[1] [1] https://insideevs.com/news/710364/byd-detroit-import-seagull-caresoft/ https://insideevs.com/news/710364/byd-detroit-import-seagull...
  - theamk 2y ago
    > This imported Seagull wasn’t made to pass U.S. crash standards Interesting but not something one would want to drive.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- Modified3019 2y ago
  China is a difficult place to try to pry factual information out of, but I wouldn’t be keen to go that route. I’ve seen some indication on social media of an elevated amount of severe failures of materials and/or poor welding in new vehicles from China. This leads me to suspect the usual corner cutting or outright fraud on material quality that makes China so risky to do business with. It is difficult enough to hold western automakers to account for failures, I would not want to attempt to need legal recourse from Chinese companies.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  The BYD Seagull meets European safety regulations.

bell-cot 2y ago

$3k-$4k cars, or enclosed golf carts? In the first world, I'd say: - the usual Big Government stuff (industry-specific regulatory, bureaucratic, & legal moats) - brutal economies of scale for highly complex large manufactured goods - public-good-doesn't-count-for-shit capitalism That last one is especially brutal. If you could make $20K by selling one $80k SUV, vs. $20K by selling 100 $3k cars (each with a $200 profit) - then it's damned obvious which way you'd want to go. From marketing, to staffing your showrooms, to sales paperwork, to customer complaints, to the long-term legal and forced-recall liabilities - trying to sell the 100 affordable little cars is a 100X worse choice for you.

stock_toaster 2y ago

I wish there were some domestic manufacturers of Kei type cars[1] and, even more so, trucks[2] here in the US (or that it was cheaper and easier to import and license). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_truck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_truck

zardo 2y ago
They are encouraged by regulation in Japan. Lower tax, registration fees, and insurance. Also the requirement in some areas to have off-street parking to register a car is waved.

invalidator 2y ago

Safety regulations. "A Car" needs to be able to operate safely on highways at 60+ MPH. That means: horsepower, braking, crumple zones, airbags, crash testing, etc. By the time you add those up you've already exceeded that budget, and you only have a glorified rickshaw. People want doors, roll-down windows, etc, which all add cost... they're going to be better served with a used car in that price range. The closest things that exist are Neighborhood Electric Vehicles. They're basically golf carts with seatbelts, allowed to operate on city streets up to 25 MPH. It would be great if the US had something like Japan's Kei Cars. Those are $10k and up, fast and safe enough for local highway use (say 50MPH)... It works in Japan because urban traffic tends to be low speed. They are less practical in the US where freeways run through every city, but they'd still work for many people. They would require significant regulation changes.

derekp7 2y ago
Would the 3-wheel tadpole configuration vehicles (technically classified as motorcycles) fit the bill? I see them on the road frequently -- they have seats and car type controls, 2-seaters, some are fully enclosed too. I think this type is called an autocycle.
- invalidator 2y ago
  Maybe? I think they're mostly used as sports vehicles currently, but it might be possible to squeeze a more practical vehicle into that class.

palata 2y ago

With that budget you get an electric bike, though. That's a small, cheap, healthy car.

willcipriano 2y ago
"The reason you can't have a cheaper car is it needs many crash safety features! It would be unsafe! Ride a bike instead!" How does the bike do in a crash?
- pornel 2y ago
  That's why cyclists advocate for protected lanes and separate bike paths, instead of infrastructure made of paint.
  - xhkkffbf 2y ago
    Do you realize that at least half of the bike accidents don't involve cars? Getting rid of the cars won't get rid of the dangers of the two wheeled, unstable machines that frequently toss the riders when the brakes lock. https://discerningcyclist.com/bicycle-accident-statistics/ https://discerningcyclist.com/bicycle-accident-statistics/
    - pornel 2y ago
      Page 18 of that report shows 80% of injuries are from cars/trucks/motorcycles. People can still faceplant badly, but getting rid of cars will avoid the vast majority of fatal crashes.
      - xhkkffbf 2y ago
        I'm not sure where you're getting this. This link doesn't have pages and it gathers information from a variety of sources. The top of the report clearly says, "50% of crashes are a single bicycle accident (HOPE)" and "21% of crashes are a bicycle-bicycle crash (HOPE)". Is it possible that only 29% involve cars?

tim333 2y ago

They tried producing one of those - the Tata Nano, starting from like $2k but 3 or 4k with extras in India. It wasn't a big success selling 7500 a year against the 250k they were hoping for. I guess it was a bit rubbish even for the Indian market. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Nano

asadotzler 2y ago

A Ford Pinto in 1971 was $1,919 which is $15,000 in today's dollars. A Yugo GV in 1984 was $3,990 which is $12,000 in today's dollars. A Chevy Spark in 2013 was $12,995 which is over $17,000 in today's dollars. Car companies can keep up with US regulations at about the $15,000 price point. Below that is losing money. A Nissan Versa or Mitsubishi Mirage in 2024 cost about $16,000 which is right in line with the Ford, the Yugo, and the Chevy econo-rides of the past. $3K-$4K wouldn't build you a crash regulation compliant unibody shell, much less a full car. If a major maker went balls out to build cheap and still be legal to sell in the US, they might be able to get the price down to $10K-$12K and still break even, but below that is a fantasy. Physics simply will not bend any further.