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American expat living in Thailand reporting in. I think the cheapest car in Thailand is the 2025 Suzuki Celerio which is a 5 seater hatchback. At the current ex

American expat living in Thailand reporting in. I think the cheapest car in Thailand is the 2025 Suzuki Celerio which is a 5 seater hatchback. At the current exchange rate it's $9,800 brand new. Of course this figure is not adjusted for purchasing power (so what?). We have BYDs here and I haven't really looked at them but pretty sure a few are under $25K. If Americans can't get a new car for under $25,000 but Southeast Asia can get them for under $10K, something is wrong. If the entry level car is 2.5x more expensive in America it means Americans are getting fleeced. I haven't lived in America for a long time and I feel like this makes it very obvious to me when the BS machine over there is in full spew. Free markets drive consumer prices down to the cost of production. I don't know the auto industry in detail but it is an extensively documented fact that America has few free markets left, and they've been replaced by cartels - each industry has a couple of crooks at the top who rotate between private and public jobs. On the public side they come up with excuses to not enforce the anti-trust laws that are on the books, and they add regulations that raise the cost of business. On the private side they come up with ways to improve margins which usually involve fucking consumers. Let's not make excuses for the criminals. America needs free markets and cheaper cars. Elite lawlessness is the cause of increased costs in America.

mlinhares 1y ago
There are market dynamics here as well, Americans don’t want to buy a car like the Celerio, most brands have equivalent cars selling in developing countries and Europe but they don’t bring them here because Americans mostly want to buy SUVs.
- slt2021 1y ago
  the cost to produce SUV is not significantly higher than sedan, but prices and margins are higher. so the American customer is getting fleeced on SUVs much worse than on sedan, because SUV margins are higher (and thats why OEMs are switching to SUVs)
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- LUmBULtERA 1y ago
  Except Americans are not offered a $10k new car, so it's impossible to know they won't buy them.
  - kube-system 1y ago
    You could get a Mirage on discount at many dealer's lots for 10k just a few years ago, they weren't hot sellers. They were selling at 4% of the volume of the Camry. Drive one and it's immediately obvious why Americans weren't buying them.
    - LUmBULtERA 1y ago
      Few years ago? Okay, few is 2 or 3 years. I see MSRP for a base model of Mirage in 2023 was $16,245... 2022 was $14,625? When I was buying a car in that time period, there were no discounts below MSRP anywhere I looked for almost anything. Especially anything cheap. I've read a lot of reports of big mark ups for even Mirage's during that time period.
      - mlinhares 1y ago
        COVID wasn't a good time to buy anything. Companies go where the profits are, if americans were buying tons of smaller cars instead of large trucks and suvs, the companies would be building that. All Asian/European carmakers have tons of options available everywhere else they could bring here but they don't cos people just don't buy them. Even sedans are harder to sell today, the US is its own cosmos and trying to coerce it into "small family car" when all the ads are about being a rugged f150 driver is very hard. Look at how people talk about minivans here, all about "the emasculation of men". It would require a lot of leadership to change the market perspective on these cars or americans getting very poor for it to work. It is also incredibly convenient, I myself drive a large SUV that's larger than the average WW2 tank and its insanely convenient to have that much space for a family of 6.
        LUmBULtERA 1y ago
        If American car manufacturers think no one will buy them anyway, I think we should let in all the cheap EVs that are available and see how it plays out then. Can't be worse off.
floatrock 1y ago
> If Americans can't get a new car for under $25,000 but Southeast Asia can get them for under $10K, something is wrong. If they were perfectly interchangeable, sure. But if nothing else, lets look at safety and emissions regulations -- different regulatory regimes will absolutely put different requirements onto the build and components. Not an expert in automotive regulation in SEA vs. US, but I'd buy this argument more if the comparison was between, say, Europe and the US. There's also likely a bunch of soft cost differences -- dealership dynamics, etc. that add a fair amount to the sticker price, and those probably do have some merit to your case.
lagadu 1y ago
Not just SE Asia: In Europe I can go buy a Dacia Sandero for 14k€ right now (about $16500) and that includes 23% VAT.

mlinhares 1y ago

There are market dynamics here as well, Americans don’t want to buy a car like the Celerio, most brands have equivalent cars selling in developing countries and Europe but they don’t bring them here because Americans mostly want to buy SUVs.

slt2021 1y ago
the cost to produce SUV is not significantly higher than sedan, but prices and margins are higher. so the American customer is getting fleeced on SUVs much worse than on sedan, because SUV margins are higher (and thats why OEMs are switching to SUVs)
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
LUmBULtERA 1y ago
Except Americans are not offered a $10k new car, so it's impossible to know they won't buy them.
- kube-system 1y ago
  You could get a Mirage on discount at many dealer's lots for 10k just a few years ago, they weren't hot sellers. They were selling at 4% of the volume of the Camry. Drive one and it's immediately obvious why Americans weren't buying them.
  - LUmBULtERA 1y ago
    Few years ago? Okay, few is 2 or 3 years. I see MSRP for a base model of Mirage in 2023 was $16,245... 2022 was $14,625? When I was buying a car in that time period, there were no discounts below MSRP anywhere I looked for almost anything. Especially anything cheap. I've read a lot of reports of big mark ups for even Mirage's during that time period.
    - mlinhares 1y ago
      COVID wasn't a good time to buy anything. Companies go where the profits are, if americans were buying tons of smaller cars instead of large trucks and suvs, the companies would be building that. All Asian/European carmakers have tons of options available everywhere else they could bring here but they don't cos people just don't buy them. Even sedans are harder to sell today, the US is its own cosmos and trying to coerce it into "small family car" when all the ads are about being a rugged f150 driver is very hard. Look at how people talk about minivans here, all about "the emasculation of men". It would require a lot of leadership to change the market perspective on these cars or americans getting very poor for it to work. It is also incredibly convenient, I myself drive a large SUV that's larger than the average WW2 tank and its insanely convenient to have that much space for a family of 6.
      - LUmBULtERA 1y ago
        If American car manufacturers think no one will buy them anyway, I think we should let in all the cheap EVs that are available and see how it plays out then. Can't be worse off.

floatrock 1y ago

> If Americans can't get a new car for under $25,000 but Southeast Asia can get them for under $10K, something is wrong. If they were perfectly interchangeable, sure. But if nothing else, lets look at safety and emissions regulations -- different regulatory regimes will absolutely put different requirements onto the build and components. Not an expert in automotive regulation in SEA vs. US, but I'd buy this argument more if the comparison was between, say, Europe and the US. There's also likely a bunch of soft cost differences -- dealership dynamics, etc. that add a fair amount to the sticker price, and those probably do have some merit to your case.

lagadu 1y ago

Not just SE Asia: In Europe I can go buy a Dacia Sandero for 14k€ right now (about $16500) and that includes 23% VAT.