Car affordability in 2022 and beyond

Such models didn't sell well in the past. Minimum safety and emission standards keep them from being cheap. Many opt for a preowned model with better features.

The Ford Maverick base doesn't have cruise control. It does have power windows. Guess making a door with manual cranks wasn't worth the cost of crash testing. Next trim up gets you basic cruise control.

Some Hyundais have non-chipped keys. Kids were stealing them for social media videos.

Will tungsten filament sealed beams meet current vehicle standards? Doubt they'll pass CR or IIHS tests.

 

I certainly would.

The Dacia didn't.

The thing is, I'd be astonished if manual windows actually cost the manufacturer less than power ones these days: economies of scale, among other things, would suggest that they cost just as much, or more. The same goes for having a super-basic radio (FM/AM, no USB, Bluetooth for calls but not streaming, no AUX input). Radios that do have those features would cost the manufacturer about the same as the super-basic radio, I suspect.

But it's about making customers feel that they're saving money - that by not having these luxuries, they're being frugal. The Dacia Sandero is not that much cheaper than better-equipped rivals, but by forgoing these luxuries people think they have beaten the system and got a bargain, even if that's not true.

 

Have heard the cost difference between a manual and automatic transmission was much less than what was charged to upgrade to the automatic here. Now demand for manuals in cars is so low here, that the manufacturer will have to charge extra for it to cover the certification fees.

Same forces at work with the old stripper models and trims. So few people opt for them that there isn't any cost savings to the manufacturer to make them. A toaster company can make a few of a loss leader model that they sell at a loss, but the costs involved with a car make that a losing prospect with a car.

Once you have the sensors for that, dynamic/automatic cruise control is a low cost upgrade.

If you want a cheap new ride these days, better hope for success in the autocycle segment. Elio didn't make it, and the Aptera will cost around that of a Bolt, if it gets made.

 

Why is it all the apoligists for China's human rights abuses claim people who work hard to raise awareness about what's going on are not "educated?"

Yet you provide no references or counter arguments to work with?

China is fascinating to learn about, it's really three unique and entirely different nations forced to be one nation under the tyranny of Bejing. Breaking up China would be enormously beneficial to everyone!

As for talking to people about China I do that often. There's a local guy I used to argue with at coffeehouse. He was a devout Chinese nationalist and I'd never stop point out the atrocities in his country, especially in unlawfully occupied Tibet. We used to go around in around in a friendly way. It always came back to his primary argument of "Other countries do awful stuff too." That's a weak sauce losing argument as far as I'm concerned!

Meanwhile: "More than 1 million Uighurs and other minorities from Xinjiang are believed to be held in internment camps, where they are forced to study Marxism, renounce their religion, work in factories and face abuse, according to human rights groups and first-hand accounts. Beijing says these "re-education camps" provide vocational training and are necessary to fight extremism." New details of torture, cover-ups in China's internment camps revealed in Amnesty International report

Do you have any idea how heartbreaking it has been for the people of China for Xi to change the laws so he can serve more than two terms as their leader? Maybe read the transcript and educate yourself: http://www.democracynow.org/2022/10/25/china_president_xi_jinping_third_term

Also, do you haven any idea what's it's like to have your entire life revolve around a government controlled phone app that allows you to make purchases and travel, as well as enter your apartment and any sign of criticism of your government eliminates the functions on that app that your day to day life depends on?

Or how about the millions of people who were born in secret and live their whole life in hiding and entirely undocumented because their parents were only allowed one child and they were the second or third child? Have you ever looked at the suicide rates of these non-people?

My whole point of mentioning this in light of the recent balloon stupidity by China is they are unable to thrive in an open market because their extremism when it comes to "face."

Specifically:

"Face-management is much more than just impression management (or “protecting and enhancing your ego”) in the Western sense. Of course, no one — regardless of culture—wants to look bad or have their ego bruised. But the Chinese concept goes beyond the narrow Western concept of face (and is perhaps closer to the Arab concept of “honor”). t’s also worth noting that the concept of face in China is vastly different than the concept of “guanxi” in China. Although both are equally important to understand. The Cult of Face in China | What it is and How to Deal with it - China Mike

 

Sounds like the cars produced by the fictional auto maker Payne Motors on the NBC sitcom American Auto.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Auto#:~:text=American%20Auto%20is%20an%20American,premiered%20on%20January%2024%2C%202023.

 

Riiiight. I think you maybe missed this bit:

You know, maybe - and I'm just spitballing here - I provided no references or counter arguments [sic] to work with because THIS IS NOT THE PLACE TO DO SO, like I said IN THE POST YOU'RE REPLYING TO.

What you're saying doesn't belong on this thread. It belongs in Fred's House of Politics. It's here: https://priuschat.com/forum/freds-house-of-politics.70/. If you want to tell us all about your politics, that's where to do it. The clue is in the name. I see you're already using that forum, so please, take your "I HATE CHINA" thing there, where it belongs.

And I mean, really, please do. I'd love for you to educate me all about this country about which you know so much.

I am sure that, as someone who has just discovered the concept of 关系 and now feels the need to tell me about it, and who has also read claims about China on the Internet, and who has spoken in English to (and chosen not to recognise the opinions of) some guy in a cafe in America, you can really school me on this country. My 15 years living across Greater China - in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as in the Mainland - and my 30 years' experience of regular visits to China, and my fluent Chinese, and the fact that I actually investigate those slavery allegations and other human-rights-abuse allegations you mention for corporate clients, and the fact that I have great friends across every level of society and of every political persuasion in Mainland China and Hong Kong and Taiwan and have had long, in-depth discussions with them about political issues in their native languages, and that I have a degree in this stuff, all pale in significance in comparison to your having read something on the Internet and having spoken in English to some Chinese bloke in a cafe who you decided you knew more than.

So really, take this to politics. Do it. Tell me all about this country you've never been to and whose language you don't speak, but about which you know everything. I can't wait. It will be educational. Please. I wish to learn at the feet of the master. (Well, I say "master". Obviously you and @Hidyho will have to fight it out for the title of "person who knows everything there is to know about China". He thinks - no, knows - that TikTok is State-owned! It's funny.)

----

Now, can we go back to talking about car affordability in 2022 and beyond? Or is there some other irrelevant political opinion you'd like to discuss in here instead?

 

I hadn't heard of this before, but it sounds promising. Is it along similar lines to things like Superstore?

 

How is this preventing Chinese EV companies from investing in the US and selling cars here? While they do so in Europe and Australia. It wasn't the Chinese government that said no to CATL and Ford building a factory in Virginia.

 

Yeah, they're OK as a short-term passenger, if it's the same model I went in. It was one of these....



But driving them is just a bit rubbish. I honestly can't see the value in saving the money - better to either spend a bit more or buy used.

The Mk I (called a Renault Logan in some markets) is still being made in Iran, I think. I got one as a taxi in Isfahan. It's much smaller.



The best I can say for it is that it was not the worst car I rode in in Iran. That was in Shiraz, in an old Paykan (a 1960s Hillman Hunter made under licence in Iran until the mid 2000s), which had a steel girder holding the B-pillars together to stop the rusted-and-crashed car from collapsing.

Oh, no. That's not the best thing I can say for it. The best thing I can say for it was that the Logan taxi driver in Isfahan was playing the Abba Gold album through a karaoke system that he'd installed, and we sang all the way from our hotel to the restaurant we were going to for dinner. I said "Thank you for the music" when we got out.

Anyway, back to topic....

Yes. I reckon that in a lot of cases, these "basic" specs are costing the manufacturer as much or more than the more luxurious specs. I think it is all about the illusion of frugality.

In Australia, the quoted base price is usually for a manual, and they charge an extra A$2000 or so for an auto, even though well over 90% of cars sold here are autos. And yes, I'm sure the cost difference for them is nowhere near that $2000. I suspect they sell that small number of manuals as loss-leaders.

Indeed. I saw quite of few of them - ICE and EV - in Italy last month. They often cost well under US$10,000 - sometimes half that. The only one that has made it to the UK market is the Citroen Ami, which costs £7,995 in the UK - so about £5,000 less than the cheapest proper car, the Dacia Sandero that I mentioned earlier. But their usefulness really is limited: it doesn't really have the speed, range, size or safety to be a substitute for a proper car.

 

Yes, precisely.

We're seeing massive changes to the EV market now as Chinese companies come in - MG, Ora and BYD are all undercutting the cheapest European, Korean and American EVs by A$10-20,000. In the ICE sector too, MG, Great Wall and LDV are massively undercutting their competitors, and this is often coming with no real reduction in quality.

 

Maybe government policies back home are helping with the pricing abroad. Doesn't mean they are all be bad policies though. China was supporting EVs long before other countries, which has given their companies a head start in production infrastructure.

 

It's certainly a factor.

There are two key things in this area. It is important to remember that, other than the SAIC companies (MG and LDV in most markets), the big EV makers are not State-owned and there are no actual subsidies beyond the same sort of tax breaks, land grants and stuff that you'd get in the EU or US. So those key things are R&D support and clustering. On R&D, the government actively encourages cooperation between academic institutions and corporations, and it does direct that cooperation toward the companies - like CATL and BYD - that it sees as most likely to succeed. On clustering, it uses those tax and land policies to help specific industrial areas cluster together a whole industrial chain. So CATL will have component manufacturers and chemicals processors and stuff close by, and the companies are able to cooperate very effectively, cutting costs and securing supply chains.

 

Yeah I’ve thought the same. Touch screens are similar I think, save the effort of designing tactile, ergonomic, eyes-on-the-road controls. Ah well.

how about not coming out with new generations with everything reinvented, every 4~6 years. The original vw bug was an example of that. And pass on the savings due to less retooling, to the customers.

 

China is not a forward operating nation in developed countries. And granted when it comes to colonial activities in undeveloped nations China's ability to engage in genocide & counter intelligence has clearly upstaged the World Bank and International monetary fund when it comes to looting and pillaging poor nations.

But when it comes comes to building factories and investing in the developed world, not only are Chinese companies treated more as an enemy than an ally, but the Chinese government treats their own people in similar ways:

"A Chinese-Canadian billionaire has been sentenced to 13 years in prison in China and his company fined more than $8bn (£6.7bn). Xiao Jianhua and his company Tomorrow Holdings were charged with embezzlement and bribery, a court in Shanghai said. Xiao - one of China's richest people - was last seen being whisked away from a luxury hotel in Hong Kong in 2017. There had been no official word from him since, until the Canadian embassy said in July he would be facing trial." Billionaire Xiao Jianhua jailed for 13 years in China - BBC News

While all the rest of the world worships the richest businessmen and tries to attract their investments, the paranoid-delusional Chinese leaders throw their richest people in the country in jail to save "face" so their arrogant and impotent dictators can pretend to be superior. And clearly, there's no more certain path to eventual failure for a nation in the rapidly developing nations of the global market.

For example, the most valuable research facility on the entire planet when it comes to advanced technology that all the most developed nations have invested billions of dollars into China has been banned:

"China has been banned from the ISS since 2011. That's when Congress, citing human rights abuses and national security concerns, prohibited NASA from collaborating with China unless specifically allowed by law." Why is China not allowed on the ISS?

 

So it's ok for you to dismiss all that I pointed out that's wrong with China, as well as dismiss what I followed up on with valid references.

Yet, it's totally ok for you to claim I'm wrong and that I need to talk to real people in China to get educated?

So what you're saying is that you can say whatever you want in support of Chinese atrocities, but if I try to clarify what they are doing is wrong, suddenly it's not ok and inappropriate to discuss it? Seriously?

I love the way you think... It's a perfect example of what's wrong with the leaders of China!

 

Yes, exactly. Well done.

It's also OK for me to briefly point out that you are foolishly talking about something you know dangerously little about, and to say that this is not the forum to discuss it, and to provide you with a link to a forum THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW ABOUT where I would be more than happy to discuss it.

So go over there. Start a thread on this. Copy and paste your comments from here into the thread in FHoPolitics and I will be more than happy to address them.

However, for me to do that on this thread would be wrong BECAUSE IT'S NOT THE POLITICS FORUM.

I'm not sure how much clearer I can be on this.

 

Absolutely. I think you've read my posts about my ID.3 rentals on the EV forum. Tactile stuff has been cut to a minimum: even when there are switches, they're often touch-sensitive to cut costs. Drivers behind me were, I think, frequently alarmed as every time I got too hot while driving on the motorway I ended up turning my hazard warning lights on.

Possibly the most galling piece of cost-cutting on the ID.3 is the window switch. Four windows, four switches, right? No. Four windows, two window switches, and a touch-sensitive "rear" button to change those two switches between operating the front and rear windows. All driven by software that crashes: I spent three days unable to wind the driver's window up or down until it miraculously rebooted itself.

Yes indeed. The W123 Mercedes also springs to mind. The transition from Golf 7 to Golf 8, on the other hand, shows how an unnecessary "upgrade" to a new generation can be a disaster.

TBF, though, Tesla are doing what you suggest to a certain degree, making minor upgrades without coming out with a new model. I do think that's a good thing, and I'm sure it helps reduce their costs without harming the interests of consumers. However, when it comes to your previous complaint about touchscreens instead of switches, they are the worst offenders of all.

 

That was how Scion started. The xA was the ist in Japan, which was a gen1 Vitz that was heading into its second generation. It and the first xB were using older Toyota engines and transmissions. Which Toyota still does in North American models. In the end Scion failed for many of the reasons why stripper models are no longer common. The target market would rather get a better equipped used car.

The xB was more of a badge engineered bB than a continuation of of an older model generation. Badge engineering was once heavily used, but the obvious twinning of models was turning buyers off.

Haven't checked lately, but Mitisubishi did continue selling the previous Outlander as a -Sport when the new generation came out. I don't recall the savings being large. When Daimler owned Chrysler, weren't they just using old Mercedes for new cars? This is probably still going on with most car companies. Just with the older gen being sold elsewhere.

The old Ranger was unchanged forever. It eventually died because safety standards would require a new design. Some models still have a relatively long generation cycle, but new technology and regulations eventually require a redesign. When Mazda's SkyActiv first came out, they put the engine in the current Mazda3. The full potential of the engine couldn't released because the new exhaust manifold couldn't fit in the engine bay, for example.

The original VW Beetle once still made for Mexico might of had disc brakes, but there was no way it would pass US safety requirements.

Well, let's see, the topic of the thread is about the affordability of new cars in the US. It was brought up that in past, foreign car companies entered the market at a lower price point, causing a disruption. First from Japan, and then S Korea. The question was raised of why we haven't seen any from China now. The answer for why was about how the American market is now hostile to them. With no discussion about why that is. Just a statement on why we shouldn't expect a Chinese car company to enter the market.

You responded with a political rant. When it was pointed out that this specific thread wasn't the place for such a discussion, you responded with another rant, and continue to do so. While the points you raised could be reasons for that hostility, they are not reasons being used.