Covid fucked up the car market pretty bad for several years and it’s only NOW just barely recovering. People were selling used cars for more than they bought them new. And used shitty cars that used to go for cheap are going for premium prices.

If you’re going to pay out the nose anyway, it starts to make a lot of sense to get something new because it’s both cheaper and you’ll know the full history and have the full warranty.

Who buys cars with cash??

Really, the problem stems from the idea of wealth in general. To use a Communist structure like that would require eliminating the concept of non-tangible “wealth” entirely. Because otherwise you get the kind of incongruencies that you describe.

It’s hard though, right? Without wealth, how do you value the work of others? It used to be done by bartering. Or perhaps people did it because they were good at it, and didn’t mind helping out. People worked together.

Obviously this doesn’t fit in the modern era, when people generally work specifically to earn money, rather than for some general purpose. People probably aren’t going to want to do the job they already have in exchange for nothing but goodwill. They have to have a purpose. Our purpose in Capitalism (unless you are very lucky) is to earn Wealth so we can continue to exist, and that does a decent enough job for most people.

Clearly you’ve put effort into becoming an EE. Clearly it has paid back. I don’t see why you’re arguing.

Strawman argument.

‘Enjoy’ is probably a better term.

I have a recurring service appointment every two weeks where I drop off the car and throw a stack of money at them.

Actually, it’s a reliable car, but the previous owner ignored a few big service items. Now that those are done, it’s cheaper to maintain than you might think.

You mean the used ones that will need a battery replacement in the near future?

2030 is more than 5 years from now.

People who need cars can’t wait 7 years to buy one.

Also, fuck Tesla. Fucking death traps.

I’ve been waiting for aptera, but I think my current vehicle will finish falling apart before they finally come out. I’m going to look for a battery replacement on a bolt.

Leasing is terrible, I’ll pay much much more over the lifetime of the vehicle. I can afford the money, I just don’t want anything expensive or fancy.

I have an 02 VW Golf diesel. My coworkers are constantly asking why I don’t get a new car. My TDi will still be running when I’m six feet under, I’ll never give it up.

I feel like you don’t understand that, in addition to the transportation shortfalls from the comment above, people are also stuck buying whatever vehicle they can afford, which oftentimes are the tanks you describe, which unfortunately have the aftermarket values that fall into lower earners’ price range.

Short of that, I challenge you to get a popular rapper to talk about their pimped out Prius.

Part of it, as I understand, is that vehicles classed as light trucks instead of passenger cars (i.e. pickups and SUVs) are exempt from certain safety and testing requirements. Car manufacturers push them super hard because less money on regulatory compliance = more profit.

There’s also been the cultural tie between big vehicles and masculinity, I’m sure the marketing teams haven’t been shy about reinforcing that attitude.

Honestly it’s becoming increasingly hard to drive smaller cars in the sea of tank sized ones for a couple of reasons.

First, it can be really hard to see in situations where an SUV is blocking your view of the oncoming traffic or you need to pull out between two tanks. Also, I find it really difficult to drive my small car at night because I have astigmatism and the oncoming trucks and suvs are shining directly at my face the whole time. Last, even small cars with good safety ratings fair poorly in impacts with higher and heavier cars, especially if I had kids I think this would be a significant motivation to not have the smallest car on the road.

It’s an infuriating situation as someone who doesn’t want to buy a land boat just to go to the grocery store, but I don’t really think the blame can solely be placed on consumers. What we really need is to close the loopholes in emission standards for SUVs, implement a tax on heavy vehicles, and start taxing gasoline at sustainable rate. Unfortunately there isn’t much desire to do any of those things right now :(

The fuel economy regulations are more forgiving for larger vehicles. Since the manufacturers fail at making efficient engines, they just make larger vehicles to get a passing rating. This is why small trucks no longer exist and an F150 is now the size of an elephant.

Barely offer sedans? Only if you specifically mean American manufacturers. Toyota, Nissan, Subaru and Honda all offer multiple sedan models. Claiming there aren’t any sedan models out there is just pure nonsense.

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Go try. Last time I had to buy a car they wanted 3k over sticker. The market has been a nightmare for years.

I live in a car manufacturing city. I don’t work in the industry but have plenty of friends and acquaintances who do. Have 2nd hand stories of high level managers giving speeches where they literally say they are focusing on trucks and SUVs because the margins are better.

You are delusional. All you have to do is go somewhere like cars.com to see how wrong you are. Search new, all vehicles under $20,000. There’s a couple, all of them would be over $20,000 after tax, title and license fees. There are barely any cars that cheap now. Car manufacturers are intentionally not offering budget vehicles now. That’s the whole point.

Right? People can’t seem to cope with the fact that Americans want bigger cars.

Mid 20k is a bit higher than “under 20k” though right?

It’s spelt gigalo.

Big “millennials and their avocado toast” energy