You know what the car industry should do? Design more luxury vehicles! Obviously! That’ll definitely solve the problem.
I’m more concerned that the car pipeline is now
Boomers and Influencers buy mega expensive cars -> sold used to everyone else used.
And “everyone else” includes the very well off. Like my sibling, who works a great corporate job, has a spouse with a corporate job, good start, no kids, frugal and smart, blah blah blah… yet with all that, they still can’t justify a new car. They bought a used EV.
That’s an oversimplification and generalization, but you get the idea.
It just seems backwards. The people who need the cars for raising children or work are getting them second hand. For those whom it’s a luxury, they get it new. It feels like a big perverse incentive.
I think the problem is less that cars have gotten more expensive but that wages have consistently not kept up with inflation for decades now. I seriously wonder when the tipping point is where wages are so outpaced by costs that entire industries start falling over because there’s no demand
Cars are luxury items, so most people can’t afford to buy them brand new. This is the logical outcome of raising car prizes so much but USA is all about greed and not about foresight
Billionaires: Suck the wealth out of the working class
Also Billionaires: Why aren’t they buying our products?
We live in car-mandatory cityscape, and I was paying out the nose just commuting with a used CR-V we were making payments on. I also really hate having to either spend a ton of time in the heat on YouTube fixing the things, or pay an extortionate fee for replacing constant part failures. The car gives me a ton of anxiety when it wants to make a surprise $2000 noise every so often.
Moving isn’t really an option, as we basically survive on pooled familial support.
I think a new car was the next best thing in this instance: We traded that in for a new Chevy Bolt EV because I couldn’t find decent used ones, the payment only went up a little (on a larger total yes), and it’s the cheapest EV in the county.
I hope it wasn’t a bad move. My logic is it gets 99% of the jobs done way cheaper, hardly any maintenance, no fluids and oils, and we’ve got solar at home in a VERY sunny part of the country.
I wanna keep this thing as long as possible, and we figured our income to pay it off would probably go up with the time and cash won back from fussing with the damn car all the time.
…Plus it feels like flipping off Donny FumbDuck and his oil buddies every time I start it up. So that’s nice…
But I really hope this wasn’t a bad move. In the meantime I’d love a more walkable city but that’s like moving mountains here…
We’ve had our Bolt since 2019, and between that and my E-bike, I can’t help but chuckle when I see the gas prices in SoCal.
Just make sure you hound the dealer if and when any recalls happen. It took ages to get the appointment to do the battery upgrade.
Its for the best. In the long term and from a neutral perspective, constantly buying new cars sounds like a massive waste of resources for their manufacturing alone, not even accounting for the maintenance, fuel, and space they take up. Our govt should be looking into more mass transit, but we’re talking about the USA here. So its a pipe dream.
The prospect of $10/gal gas doesn’t frighten me. I’m considering this as similar to the transition from whale oil. We are going to kick and scream to the bitter end.
It absolutely kills me that we chose the bad outcome when we were still well aware of the consequences.
It’s insane to me how some people are willing to just keep having a monthly payment in perpetuity, and it doesn’t help that scummy salespeople are able to dupe them into trading in every couple of years by making the numbers show their monthly payment not changing. I know there’s some financial illiteracy in a lot of those cases, but yeah.
I’ve never bought a new car in my life. Always bought old bangers. Because I hated needing a car and I wanted to waste the least amount of money on it.
Now I haven’t owned one in almost 9 years and I’m much happier. But I live in a city with amazing public transport.
I grew up in carbrain suburban hell and i bought a shiny new car as soon as i got my first real job.
Fortunately for me, my carbain wasnt so rotted that i couldnt see the folly in my purchase after just a few months. I vowed never to buy another new car off the lot again. My next car would definitely be used!
fast forward 8 years, i ended up moving to a city with decent transit and bikes, so i sold that first, shiny, new car… and i never needed to buy that next used car.
Good.
This isn’t hexbear
