Five years ago it was a lot easier to buy a car for less than $30,000.
    • @[email protected]English
      16•3 days ago

      Everyone (who doesn’t have waist-down body issues) does too, but car manufacturers can’t charge as much for them.

      They therefore lobby governments for tax breaks for the oversized road boats and destroy the market for Japanese kei-cars with tariffs and “safety regulations”.

      https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/big-ute-loophole-cost-taxpayers-over-250-million-in-2023/

      https://www.drive.com.au/news/imported-kei-cars-stranded-australia-blunder/

    • @[email protected]
      6•3 days ago

      As someone who drives a 2002 sedan, it is amazing to me how large all cars have become. The only comparably sized thing from my car’s era to today’s vehicles were Hummers, which were literally regarded as an insanely oversized monstrosity at the time.

      If you see a 2002 hummer next to most any modern SUV, the modern SUV is dwarfing the Hummer the way that a hummer dwarfs my little car. Its ridiculous.

      Now, many of those modern monstrosities are probably getting better milage than my 02’ sedan, but imagine what insanely fuel efficient cars we could make today if modern sedans werent the size of a 2002 era station wagon? Imagine how much better our roads would be if the average passenger vehicle didnt weigh well over 4k pounds…

      The modern Hummer EV weighs like 10k pounds. Why the fuck are people allowed to drive a 5-ton vehicle without a special license?

    • @[email protected]
      11•3 days ago

      The article doesn’t really mention it, but it’s also partly due to the OEMs cancelling a lot of new programs over the last year. Running existing equipment, which has already paid itself off, for a few extra years leads to slightly cheaper vehicles.

  • @[email protected]English
    17•3 days ago

    My mom once showed me an ad listing cars in the $300 range. It might have been the model-t era, but still…

  • Diplomjodler
    19•3 days ago

    If you have $ 30,000 to buy a car, you’re better off buying second hand. That’s the whole secret.

    • @[email protected]
      31•3 days ago

      Used to be true, not consistently so since COVID or so. I had to buy a car about two years ago and brand new cars with full warranties were only $1-2k more and with better financing offers than 2-4 year used cars with limited warranties. It got better for a bit but apparently used car prices are spiking again

      • @[email protected]
        6•3 days ago

        Used Electric cars are cheap, though. Everyone sees the battery tech advancing fast, so EVs depreciate quickly since the battery is a huge chunk of the cost.

        • @[email protected]English
          3•3 days ago

          In a classic case of “they don’t make them like they used to”, new ICE vehicles are less reliable than new EVs, and have similar (lack of) life cycle.

          Older ICE vehicles may not be as efficient, but because they will still be on the road 10-15 years longer than their new equivalents means that they will have less environmental impact.

          Our only hope is that recycling of depleted EV batteries becomes a thing in the near future and that recycling of modern composite materials improves to a point where we can use damaged body panels for make new body panels.

          • Annoyed_🦀 English
            6•3 days ago

            The newer car is just more complicated than the older generation one, and sometime this mean one simple sensor that isn’t crucial will sour the driving experience. And then newer car software tend to glitch out some time and then refuse to function, requiring patch to fix. This will also happen to EV as well, albeit EV have even less sensor than ICE, not having an engine cut out tons of sensor, thus giving them better reliability.

            I have a customer that drive an overcomplicated Mercedes that the water pump will sometime refuse to run, causing the thing overheat. So far no one able to find out what’s the issue is, even the specialist. His accord 07 still run well today and he’s been refusing to sell it despite having the money to own the latest model.

            • @[email protected]English
              3•3 days ago

              I deliberately purchased a Suzuki Jimny because I can fix anything that is on it without specialised training or equipment.

              The only special tool i would need would be a wrench for the front hubs.

              The only specialised equipment is a scantool for configuring the VVT.