They elude to it in the second line after the title but they never point it out:
Five years ago it was a lot easier to buy a car for less than $30,000.
…and later in the article…
New cars costing less than $30,000 were just 13.9 percent of all car sales in the first half of this year; for the first six months of 2019—before the pandemic drove up new car prices by so much—they made up 38 percent of new car sales.
I think the answer is simply inflation:
$30,000 in 2019 is worth $37,722.15 today
…and…
$24,000 in 2019 is worth $30,177.72 today
So for apples to apples comparison the question should be, “How many fewer cars costing $24,000 in 2019 are there that cost $30,000 today?”, but the article doesn’t ask or answer that question.
Probably because it’s just a nice round tens of thousands that’s the current benchmark. It wasn’t long ago that similar articles mourned the scarcity of the sub-$20k car. I don’t want to say it was a Scion, but I don’t think the gap could be that big between the death of scion and the general loss of the $19, 999 car.
Tried to look up what I saw years ago and instead found there were still sub-$20k cars as of 2024. Hyundai Venue and Mitsubishi Mirage. And the venue just surpassed the mark.
Anyway, see you again in 2029-2035 when someone else writes about the loss of the $40,000 economy car
They elude to it in the second line after the title but they never point it out:
…and later in the article…
I think the answer is simply inflation:
$30,000 in 2019 is worth $37,722.15 today
…and…
$24,000 in 2019 is worth $30,177.72 today
So for apples to apples comparison the question should be, “How many fewer cars costing $24,000 in 2019 are there that cost $30,000 today?”, but the article doesn’t ask or answer that question.
Probably because it’s just a nice round tens of thousands that’s the current benchmark. It wasn’t long ago that similar articles mourned the scarcity of the sub-$20k car. I don’t want to say it was a Scion, but I don’t think the gap could be that big between the death of scion and the general loss of the $19, 999 car.
Tried to look up what I saw years ago and instead found there were still sub-$20k cars as of 2024. Hyundai Venue and Mitsubishi Mirage. And the venue just surpassed the mark.
Anyway, see you again in 2029-2035 when someone else writes about the loss of the $40,000 economy car