- Dogmatically sticking to fossil fuels.
- “Protecting” domestic manufacturering jobs by refusing to engage with your neighbours.
- Using tariffs to keep out affordable Chinese EVs that use tech everyone will probably be using in 15 to 20 years.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster. You can only artificially prop up your domestic market for so long. You’ll inevitably fall behind even further on innovation with this approach.
Might be the first to make a CoPilot or ChatGPT powered car though.
Look, the Chinese EVs are a literal trade weapon. The other points I agree on. But China has subsidies on EVs even when sold to other countries because they aim to put competitors out of business globally. Otherwise they’d just be subsidizing EVs for domestic use.
So I can’t blame them for tariffing those. But the solution is to invest heavily in domestic EVs, not to keep running with internal combustion…
The US heavily subsidizes its auto industry. Why is this being raised as a point against China? It’s not China’s fault that American auto companies use their subsidies to line their pockets instead of creating cheaper and better vehicles.
And countries that have auto industries put tariffs on US cars too. They also don’t get nowhere near as much in subsidies per car sold abroad. And for the EV subsidies, foreign EVs were also eligible.
China also tariffs foreign cars heavily and always has.
From what I’ve seen it wasn’t specifically a global trade weapon. It was more a side effect of central government planning.
There was just a government program to encourage electric car manufacture to boost local manufacturing. They over saturated the domestic market and are now dumping the cars internationally.
Sure China is not some moral or benevolent actor in all this. At the very least they were forward thinking enough to subsidize the future of automobile transport. Some degree of protectionism may be warranted but the goal should be to catch up with China in the meantime, not double down on fossil fuels.
They’re doing what we should be doing. Subsidizing a sustainable alternative.
Canada and Europe have already let Chinese vehicles in. Canada reportedly wants to make an indigineous EV through sharing of Chinese technological knowledge. Wonder how long the US will hold out.
So what that Chinese subsidize their EVs. The US subsidizes most of their industry.
It’s really tiring for people to say what about China doing X, which the US already does in spades.And most US goods are similarly tariffed elsewhere. What’s your point?
We have been propping u domestic car manufacturers since they started making cars domestically. Pretty rich for a “capitalist free market” if you ask me. I forget we don’t get to be part of socialist America if we aren’t billionaires…
I saw something about being approved for “up to 100k” for a car loan. 100k for a car? Man, this country is fucked.
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And their beds are spotless because they are used just for regular driving with 1 or 2 people. You could do that with a compact car.
I’m told that Americans only want big expensive cars but for some reason the government felt the need to slap 100% tariffs on small inexpensive Chinese cars.
Because Chinese cars are priced at a loss to corner the market and put competition out of business.
Meanwhile VW and other manufacturers make smaller more affordable cars, but they don’t sell them here.
That’s because the goal isn’t to sell you a car, it’s to saddle you with a $50K debt obligation they get to sell off.
Exactly. If they were incentivised to encourage the best vehicle for the customer they’d be talking most people into a subcompact or minivan
nobody buys them. sales for such vehicles are tiny compared to larger cars.
it doesn’t make sense to sell subcompact cars if you only sell 5000 of them a year.
BYD and Xiaomi profit from their EVs.
As soon as someone releases a small electric pickup truck, I’m grabbing one and holding on to it as long as possible. It’s gotta have LFP batteries, though. Those last a long time.
Slate is making one that should be out in 2027. Ford was supposed to be planning one, but considering how they’ve been flailing, i doubt we will ever see it.
Not holding my breath for Slate. Alpha wolf has been on the same boat for twice as long with it’s “affordable retro EV trucks and cars” not one has hit production in 10 years since they announced it.
I’m on the same boat, though I have a lot more requirements on what I want that electric truck to NOT include. I want a proper work truck that’s user serviceable - not a computer on wheels. Untill that, I’ll stick with my -07 diesel Navara.
At this point import a Kei Truck and you’ll have that forever.
I just want a small car I can work on myself. 30 years ago, I could maintain my own car, do some shadetree mechanics…
But all cars today are meant to be black boxes. All need proprietary tools and computers to do almost anything.
Dear Santa, could I have a 67 camaro.
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I have a gearless (fixie) bike since last Summer, I don’t even have a manual for it, not do I really need one.
Before that I had a fancy e-bike which nobody but the manufacturer could fix. Even bike shops would warn “We can fix the mechanical parts but we don’t touch the electronics, if it fails while we fix it, it’s on you.” and basically saying they would prefer not to fix it.
Now my bike is so basic I don’t care and I think it’s even safer from potential robbers.
So… in my own experience, less is more! It’s less maintenance, it’s less money, it’s less temptation for others, and ironically enough in this specific case it’s even healthier. I use it everyday, from Sunny spring to rain and snow, it just works.
Simplifying is empowering.
I’m very pro simplifying, but you’ll take my freewheel from my cold dead legs. The only part of my bike that I struggle to repair is I still can’t true a wheel despite trying many times. Well also a broken frame
Ah, pesky tiny ball bearings but honestly it’s not so tricky, mostly patience. Also I did welding workshops so naively confident I could actually make a frame, not a good one though! I’m a bit too lazy for all that though so… now I just ride :D
FWIW nobody should use a fixie rather than a freewheel unless they absolutely genuinely want to… because the first moment of inattention initially, being a bump on the road or just a turn they’ll fall over the bike. After a few cold sweats though then it becomes automatic again, no thinking, just riding, and it’s genuinely fun.
I’ll take more complex computers over trying to get KE-Jetronic to run properly any day of the week lol
Honestly, things have gotten easier for me with the extra computers. Usually if something electrical is wrong, there’s a code for it. Can’t blindly trust the code of course, but it’s usually a good place to get started when doing diagnostics.
Kias just a few years ago were copies of late 90s cars at a price reflecting that and low complexity making them efficient to maintain. Take a Kia now, it’s just as expensive as everything else and will be scrapped in 8 years when one of the $2000 proprietary led assemblies fails.
hugs Civic si
you’ll get all the motors and transmissions you need, widdle guy.
My last car was a civic si. It was a great car.
There was a whole line of outstanding Civic models for a while there. I miss the Del Sol.
Paying massive tariffs could be part of the problem.
Similar to how China let Tesla in to force its domestic market to compete (Which now makes the best EV’s in the world) America should do the same. Let BYD or Xiaomi sell cars in the states, Musk and co. can then compete or lose to the Chinese. With musk’s close ties to the admin I doubt this will happen.
Google “BYD slave labor”
I see genocide gets ignored for cheap cars.
If you can get people to stop buying from China, Seize the means of production, and then live a materially worse life I’m all for it. We currently have a bunch of people crying about RAM prices stopping them from playing the latest triple AAA video game so I doubt that will happen
All hail the supreme leader Trump. Yes, he maybe a pedo, rapist and multiple convicted felon, as well as a failed businessman, but he really represents the American dream…
Sometimes I just want a car with power windows. That’s it. I’ll Putin my own deck and call it a day.
I don’t need a zillion sensors worth 1k a piece and all that bullshit.
Now make me a 15k car which is brand new.
You’re gonna have to start lobbying to get rid of safety and emissions regulations then.
Most the complexity of modern engines and the electronics attached, is for emissions and fuel efficiency (while customers ALSO want more power out of their increasingly tiny engines).
A lot of the expensive sensors in your car are related to safety systems. ESP, SRS, etc. Did you know reverse cameras are mandatory in many markets nowadays?
And you know why manual transmissions are barely being made anymore? Because they get worse fuel economy and performance in 90% of drivers’ hands.
You’re not wrong. I’m more talking about the other bullshit. HUDs instead of gauge cluster (or in addition to), power mirrors, power seats, heated and cooled seats, etc etc. There’s so much of this type of thing that has crept up to base models.
HUDs are great, you get to see your speed without taking the eyes off the road. They’re also an optional extra even in expensive cars.
Power mirrors have been around since the 80s. Heated seats are pretty much required in my climate, cooled is nice too - and only the former is standard (and only costs like a hundred bucks per car at most to implement tbh, it’s a REALLY simple system). Actually if you want to go real cheap, the Dacia Sandero for 15k€ doesn’t even have heated seats either. You have to pay 500€ for the thermo package to get those + automatic climate control.
If these things (cooled seats in particular) are now standard in base spec low-end cars in the North American market, it must mean people weren’t buying cars without them. Because they’re still optional extras in Europe.
Step 1: oligopoly. Step 2: Make less stuff, make it worse, and make it more expensive. Step 3: Use the wealth hoarded that way to make it easier to become a monopoly.
Most American cars are made outside of the USA, and most countries that supply cars and parts and under tariffs from King Dingus so yeah, cars are fucking expensive NOW. They were already trending higher.
Some parts may be made outside the US but many of the assembly plants and motor manufacturing are in the US.
For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toyota_factories#North_America
Where do you get your steel?
I don’t buy much steel.
No, but car manufacturers do.
The 1965 dodge dart cost $2153 when it released. That’s $22,004.55 according to an inflation calculator I found online. The dart is a badass car, imaging bying a sick muscle car today for less than 25 grand.
The charger 2 door, which is the closest dodge comparable to the dart. It starts at $54,995. Over double.
I realize dodge’s sales model is different and the market itself likely couldn’t be compared. But how the hell are we paying over double for vehicles that fit similar market slots? We are so fucked.
Edit: Dodgers to Dodge’s. Seriously autocorrect just doesn’t work.
You can get a modern car with similar performance.
1965 dodge dart as a muscle car so the V8 package 235 HP Curb weight 1456 kg (3210 lbs) About $2600 depending on package. 0-60 6.9 seconds 1/4 mile in 15.5 second
About 26k in todays cash
Toyota GR86 228HP Curb weight about 2900 pounds RWD
0-60 5.4 14 second quarter mile
Around 30k
What used to be top of the line is now a daily driver.
Safety and environmental regulations are what’s making new cars expensive compared to inflation. Even without the luxury bump in price.
New cars are also a literal order of magnitude more reliable. Most new cars have spark plug changes at 70k cars from then pretty much needed a full engine rebuild.
Counterpoint: Every single manufacturing method for these is easier, cheaper and more efficient now. It should not be more than double the price, mildly more expensive sure, in reality the Charger is a low end luxury muscle, but it is not that much more expensive after inflation to make, no way.
Yeah man.
Those old cars were dirt cheap for the auto companies to assemble. That is why every environmental and safety regulation was fought tooth and nail.
Swap your own drums for disc brakes, then makes those abs. You can see those prices for aftermarket parts. Now do that for just about everything in a modern car.
They are just far more complex than anything today. There recently made increases are somewhat different, but real costs were increased
My car manual recommends new spark plugs @ 90k
Cars today are simply not more reliable. I have drug a 48 Willy’s out of a barn that had been sitting for decades, adjusted the points and drained the fuel and put in new. Marvel mystery oil down the plug holes and bar by hand to ensure not seized and cleaned out the carb and she fired right up. Old cars may require more frequent service due to old mechanical systems, but they will far outlive anything made in the last 20 years. Automobile reliability peaked between 1990 and 2005 or so, anything made after is over complex (think can bus, one frayed wire and ur cars whole network goes down and immobilized you) and anything earlier still needs frequent attention yet very robust in design. Long service intervals =/= reliability, their just making them disposables after 100k miles now. See: low tension piston rings, cvt transmissions, “lifetime” fluids (no such thing…), carbon issues on intake valves and engine internals from direct injection and overstated service intervals to keep projected ownership costs down, oh I could go on and write a book about how new cars ain’t shit.
CVTs can last over 100k if you do fluid changes about every 30k miles or so.
Yes they can, but most (let’s use Subaru for example) said they had life time fluid despite having a replaceable filter, as they don’t give a shit if it grenades at 100k miles cuz if it’s out of warranty you have to buy a transmission from them! They later back tracked and said oh yea actually u should service your transmission. And this isn’t just a cvt issue, bmw was doing the filled for life crap back in the early 2000s. Automatic transmissions are hydrolic devices, and any hydrolic device is only as good as it’s hydrolic fluid.
I have a Subaru and in America they say that but outside America they recommend 30k. I blame the dealership network here for this shit.
Whole networks of rebuilt transmission dealers used to exist for the constant need to swap transmissions in older cars. 100k was about the limit for older transmissions as well.
The fact people are complaining that CVT’s last only a 100k says how much the reliability windows has shifted.
Ikr, people saying old cars were better are smoking crack. Cars back in the day started rusting after the 2nd or 3rd year of ownership and only had 5 digit odometers because most people got a new one when they got to around 70k.
When I look at used cars I don’t even look for rust the foot-wells anymore.
Sure maybe an inline motor from the 40-50’s with a manual transmission, drum brakes and manual steering was more reliable. Basically an old school farm tractor.
I think you are looking at survivability bias. The old cars left running are reliable, the unreliable ones were scrapped long ago.
Ease of repair is not the same as reliability.
My new cars are toasters. I change the oil, rotate the tires and swap out brake pads. When things go ‘wrong’ they continue to drive. A bad o2 sensor goes into an error state but the car still drives. It doesn’t just stall at each and every stop.
My 2012 nissan blows the doors clean off myold 76/77? pontiac lemans.
In the ~100k I had my Nissan I have not had to rebuild my fuel injection system but in the ~100k I had my mechanically simple Pontiac I had the carb rebuilt 3x times, and it should have been 4. Carb rebuilding was regular maintenance and it pretty much required to have a functional car. That isn’t the constant changing of gaskets required to keep it from dripping oil or blowing smoke.
It had a rock solid 305. It was much more reliable than any of the cars I got in the 80s when the transition happened to computers. I had an engine fall out of my 85 pontiac. It ran so rough in winter it rattled the engine mounting bolts out. I did have to replace the fuel injection system on my mid 90’s GM, but that car pretty reliable.
I got flashback to fixing fucking vacuum leaks. God damn why not just replace ALL the lines , still not it ? FUCK!
I traded a bus and reader that will tell me what is wrong for a chiltons and vacuum system.
I loved being young. I loved the freedom of going where I wanted when I wanted. I loved gas so cheap I would just take a drive to clear my head. The old cars were finicky and required constant attention. They just weren’t build to last more than 10 years.
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Airbags don’t cost $30000 to add to a car. Seatbelts have been around since the 1960s.
Technology like this gets cheaper as it becomes a commodity. Look at how cheap flat panel tvs have gotten.
Manufacturers like VW make affordable cars that meet safety standards — they just don’t sell them in the US because Americans like to waste money on giant SUVs and trucks that they don’t really need. The profit margins are much higher.
Your trying to make a point but just made a bunch of stuff up.
The a low priced car in Europe is the Dacia Spring at 17k euros approximately 20kUSD . It’s max speed is 80 mph and max range is around 110 miles. Its less expensive than a US car but isn’t cheap.
The 2026 Nissan Sentra is 23.5k. It’s $3.5k more than one of the lowest priced EU cars. This would be a general use car that can be use in nearly all markets of the US.
The average US salary is 66k the average EU salary is 46k. The slightly higher salary would make the 2 cars on average equivalent to US and EU citizen.
Cars are expensive. US and EU cars are on parity with each other, even with Chinese imports.
Low end cars are more expensive then they were decade ago because of safety technology, better materials and higher expectations. Frames are made of multi point precision aluminum with crumple zones instead of steel frame construction. A daily driver today out performs a performance car from 25 years ago.
VW ID2. $21,600.
In 1984, the Nissan Sentra XE hatchback coupe had a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $7,299, which is approximately $22,038 in today’s dollars. It had far less safety features than a VW ID2.
So, VW is selling the cars that in the US that you said they don’t.
It remains to be seen if the VW ID2 will be sold in the US. It’s doubtful — just like the ID3 wasn’t the ID1 wont be, the 2-door Golf no longer is, and the smaller Buzz isn’t.
There are comparable cars in the US and EU market for comparable prices. Is it just that this specific model isn’t available yet?
I’m also seeing from European sites that the price is is Euro and not USD. Even in USD the car is still comparable to the other cars listed up above at 21.5k USD.
You brought up that
"Airbags don’t cost $30000 to add to a car. Seatbelts have been around since the 1960s.
Technology like this gets cheaper as it becomes a commodity. Look at how cheap flat panel tvs have gotten."
So why aren’t these EU cars significantly less expensive relative to their market?
So what is your point here? Was the point you are trying to make specific to VW? To EV’s?
To be clear. I am stating the down market cars are pretty much in line with inflation pricing the the US car market and that much of the lowering in price that would have been achieved with manufacturing improvements went to safety and performance improvements.
Also Dodge is forcing ads on display screens at stoplights.
Computer.
But even so, it shouldn’t be costing double at any rate.
I am willing to bet there’s a layer of insurance policy at every stage of production just adding to the costs. Every business has to pay some kind of insurance tithe these days. It’s just standard practice that the costs be passed onto the consumer because anyone who doesn’t is run/bled out of business.
A literal decade late on that headline, good work CNN!
Unsustainable grift is unsustainable? Wow I’m shocked.
