Car ownership has long been integral to the American dream. But as automakers slash the production of inexpensive models to cater to customers who can afford oversized pickups and sport utility vehicles, buyers find themselves facing sticker shock at the same time they are already frustrated by the lingering effects of high inflation.
Consumer prices rose 3.3% in March, the biggest yearly increase since May 2024, while new car prices were up 12.6% from a year ago, the Labor Department reported Friday.
New vehicles now sell for an average of nearly $50,000, up 30% in six years, and average monthly payments — based on 10% down and a 6-year note — recently hit $775. Looking for something on the cheap end? The share of vehicles listing for less than $30,000 is about 13% — down from 40% five years ago, per the car review site CarGurus.
This supports my hypothesis that living in the city with buses and trains is worth the higher costs.
We sold our car and moved to a modern developed city. Only been in on taxi in 8 months, but we ride the trains every day and walk to the local stores for most things. It works great and I would hate to go back to a car centric old world place.
Sounds like a dream. Maybe the UK will one day reach this level of transport integration.
The UK is making some progress. I know Edinburgh and Glasgow are building as they can. They need to get back to digging tunnels soon since trams are great, but very speed limited.
London is world class for pedestrian access and the biking infrastructure is coming along nicely. Get Oxford Street pedestrianized and you’ll have a jewel in the shopping district.
The smaller cities do hold onto a kind of vision where cars are the modern day horse ride through the countryside, but once the rail network gets renationalized and back up to speed there will be more demand for local transit improvements.
I’ve been saying this for years but it has taken the current political environment for people to not treat me like an idiot for thinking it.
Including the stress from noise, lights, and concentrated pollution? I’m not sure.
The only noise I hear is my music playing from a speaker and a fan. I’m getting natural light from the windows. I have curtains in my bedroom that turn it into a cave.
The pollution, maybe. A lot of that is caused by cars. My parents lived out in the suburbs, but rather close to a major highway that wasn’t good for environmental quality, and was loud.
Cities aren’t loud. Cars are loud.
Cities aren’t loud. Cars are loud.
This reminds me, whenever you hear like stock “city noise ambiance”, yeah, it’s all car noises.
Vrooms, horns, maybe somebody’s thumpy car stereo bass. All cars. And like, very low people chatter by comparison.
Going further on this tangent, this made me remember specifically Baldur’s gate 2 (two), the ambient noise when you’re outside the copper coronet. It’s people sounds- talking, the occasion laugh or shout. It always made the place feel alive and interesting to me in a way car noises don’t.
That’s really cool! I kinda feel like I remember this in places in Sigil in PlaneScape: Torment, too?
A good soundscape adds so much to the experience. :)
(Note to self: go back and actually finish those games now…)
People who live in the suburbs are exposed to Far higher levels of pollution from being in traffic and get far less exercise. Cities are not loud unless you’re in a tourist area.
Most of the noise and pollution in cities comes from cars, many of which are driven by people who live in the suburbs and drive into the city…
Car prices will rise until all cars are self driving and nobody can afford to own them so you will rent driving time when you need transportation. This rental time will be even more expensive than ownership but it will be all you can afford.
You will get deals from driving subscriptions, but the ownership model will go away almost completely someday and big companies will continue to reap the rewards.
The rest of the world will just buy Asian cars and get on with it.
I really love my e-bike more with every day
This has been news for 6 years… Associated Press really did axe their employees to think this is a story.
I’m 60, I’ve never bought a brand-new car, and I doubt I ever will.
The car I’m driving now, which is two years newer than the car I drove for 18 years, is a 2006. I paid $6000 for it about eight years ago, and I’m very happy with it.
Yep, I find it insane people who buy a new car every few years. Cars don’t just die after 4 or 5 years of use. Most of my Toyotas have 300k miles on them and are early 2000s. They will last way longer than most people assume. Just maintain the damn things.
As the owner of an 01 Tacoma I can confirm, the damned thing is basically a modern Model A/T. It has a good chance of lasting 500,000 miles and being resurrected afterwards.
I got 400k miles on my current truck. I need to do some repairs to the frame, but I’m going to keep driving it because it’s still cheaper to keep it running than deal with a new truck that also needs money put in to it to fix factory design defects.
V8 version?
Standard cab 2WD V6. Pretty solid for me though and gets mileage comparable to modern cars. Figured that if I’m gonna have a pavement princess I’d at least get one with the specs of one and the repairability of a Yugo.
The 5VZs are stupid reliable if you do the maintenance on them. They’ll basically outlive you lol, I’ve seen people with 500k miles on the stock motors no rebuilds and still daily driving them.
We’ll have our walkable cities for sure at this rate.
We’ll have more people walking in cities, anyway.
Futures so bright I have to wear shades
Walkin down the stroad
Wouldn’t it have been nice if the US had a mass-transit system like Europe or China? Oh well.
Does US media know the difference between average and mean or median?
Yes and they use them all to get you to click.
Good thing my daily driver is a bike.
Don’t worry… that extra cost gets you more LCD displays and the ability to pay for a heated seat subscription.
Seems like the average is inflated with $100,000 extended cab pickup trucks with luxury features. Which have taken over the market.
New vehicles now sell for an average of nearly $50,000
The share of vehicles listing for less than $30,000 is about 13%
So you can get a car for less than 30k, but those models don’t seem to be in high demand
Those buyers, he said, are being pushed into the used market.
Haha yes that’s what we did too, we could buy a new car for the same we paid for a 4 year old car. But we wanted to be able to pull a trailer, and we wanted a better than minimum battery, and the luxury of the bigger car is of course nice too. 😋
We got the VW ID.4 a CUV which means it’s built like a real car, not some pickup truck construction that avoids regulation, that American SUV’s often are.The CUV is an amazing drive with perfect handling, an SUV is not.
I just bought a very lightly used BRZ (20k miles) for $27k and I thought I was splurging because I could have paid significantly less for a completely adequate car, but I wanted something fun. It cost me more than an SUV would have, so even people who want practical cars aren’t being forced to spend over $30k.
New vehicles have been selling for an average price of $50k for years now. I don’t know where they’re getting their data, but I’ve read this same article numerous times over the years already.
Shit like this makes me glad I have no car payments, a relatively newer pair of cars (2008 Sienna, 2015 Highlander), and a pair of “apocalypse-ready” vehicles (1980 Mercedes 240D, 1980 Honda XR500). And a little 49cc Honda Metropolitan for around-town stuff.
And yes, I have most of the tools required to work on all of them.
