8% of New Vehicles on the Market Cost Less than $30K

That's surprising, $20-30K is cheaper than MANY of the used trucks I've been looking at.

Most of the US has no choice but to buy a car to do anything they need to do. Travel to work, pick up groceries, etc. Automakers do not care. That 2008 bailout looking more and more nefarious by the day.

The least affordable market is a no shite comment.

And yet, people are gladly paying over $1000 a month on a vehicle note

Of course 100% of the people prefer an over-priced vehicle vs having to walk everywhere.

If people want cheaper cars market forces will work unless government fricks with it.

The design & build quality of modern vehicles is stupefying good.

That is expensive to achieve.

The useful life of vehicles with preventive maintenance and reasonable care is better than at any point in history.

Are there exceptions in the past 20 years? Yes, Nissan’s stupid transmissions and GM’s crappy valves but they are literally exceptions.

Folks do not take care of cars at all and do things with them that the cars weren’t designed to do and we still get 200,000 miles out of POS entry level cars.

And cars are much safer than ever.

And, the Feds have mandated strict environmental regulations on emissions.

Those improvements all cost money to achieve.

So there’s more value in cars today than ever before.

I’m not surprised that the average prices are higher.

My car crapped out on me in 2021. I was just going to get a used for the time being, but the prices were comparable to new ones.

Got mine under 30, but it wasn't by much. Not too much fancy stuff in it either.

Buy what you can afford, not what you want. If you can’t pay cash, you can’t afford it.

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Those improvements all cost money to achieve.

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Those improvements didn't happen in the past three years, which is when the price explosion happened.

Hell, cars made in the 90's got 200,000 miles and had all of the modern safety features standard. You still see lots of them on the road, especially in the working class parts of town.

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I really don't understand how people do it.

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1. Living under significant debt is not an untenable concept any longer. In fact, it has become more or less the norm.

2. In the car market most consumers really only look at their monthly note. They don't really care all that much about the total cost. If a 72, 84, 96 month note gives you a lower monthly payment they will happily take the loan for the inflated cost of the vehicle. Even though the "asset" they just purchased will depreciate significantly over the course of the loan term.