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‘Seismic shift’: driving unaffordable for many in US amid push toward SUVs
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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If anyone would care to read the article it's more about companies making more high end cars and running low stocks than making cars bigger. They reduced stock during the pandemic and discovered that they can make more money selling fewer cars with maxed out specs than a lot of base models. They simply don't have base models on stock now and people still have to buy cars so profits are soaring. Basically they made everyone depend on cars by killing public transport and are now milking it hard. Because what are you going to do? Work from home?
Good thing China isn't ready to flood the market with millions of cheap electric cars. This short term profit is going to end up biting them in the ass real quick. Although I guess they know they'll just get bailed out, so there's no reason to innovate.
Not to worry: protectionism will take take of the competition. Just like they did with the Japanese manufacturers...
Yeah no one drives a Honda or Toyota 🙄🤣
Domestically there's still Tesla, although I guess they decided to do a stupid big truck as well.
Most of those Chinese cars wouldn't meet US safety regs. Getting them up to that level would put them closer to cost parity.
They sell them in the EU, which has stricter safety regulations. If they set out to do it, they'll flood the market and get the traditional manufacturers in trouble.
Wow, I didn't realize there were Chinese cars on the European market. Are the cars being received well? Are there major issues with them and if there are major issues, does price still make them worth it?
They’re surprisingly good, particularly BYD cars, in my experience.
Americans’ vehicles tend to be huge, wildly inefficient for their daily usage, and they throw off externalities like pedestrian and cyclist risks, road damage, and support for countries who use our gas spending to make the world less liberal.
VW, Honda, Toyota, and Datsun capitalized on American vehicle bloat to build massive, multinational companies with products in every segment. The Chinese are going to ruin our domestic manufacturers, once they decide to build bridgehead plants here.
Today, I’m driving an Acura that is made in Marysville, Ohio. Not assembled; it is substantively made here in the States. And, the chain reaction that led to Honda, a Japanese company, exporting profits made from American productivity in 2024, started with the Big Three making massively bloated, inefficient, expensive, poorly designed cars, leaving a gap in the market that foreign companies exploited with right-sized, efficient, affordable, reliable vehicles, starting in the ‘60s and exploding with the ‘73 oil crisis.
I don’t have time to find a link, but there have been studies that demonstrate that the exact choices being made by American manufacturers today—to not fully serve the bottom of the market—sow the seeds of their own future declines in the middle and upper markets.
I truly feel car manufacturers are doing everything in their power to make sure that I personally regret every car decision I make. I hope a new comer starts at a low price point and eventually takes their higher margin stuff as well.
EU allows all sorts of stuff that isn't allowed in the US. Believe it or not, US safety regs are generally higher than the EU (for passengers, anyway). The Ariel Atom, for example, needs some hoop jumping to make it US street legal, but can be driven without issue much of the EU.
My biggest worry is that once/if the Chinese make cars "good enough for the US market", all car companies lobby for worse consumer protections since those regulations no longer keep new competitors out of the market.
I'd be OK with it, but with some caveats. Many US safety regs (and some pollution regs, as well) push things towards larger vehicles in indirect ways. Japanese Kei cars can be perfectly good for city use--not for US highways, but a lot of driving doesn't need to go there--but they would never pass US safety regs. And you don't need to get much bigger than a Kei to have something that works for US highways. Big is only safer for passengers, not for people outside the vehicle.
So if it comes in the context of also getting smaller cars on the road, that would be fine.
While I agree with you, big cars are like lawyers. You keep big cars around to protect you from other big cars.
Not really, the big problem is tariffs. You have to do at least final assembly in the US to avoid that.
Oh hey almost exactly like the housing issue... Greedy fucking companies realized they made more making McMansions than starter houses so no one makes reasonable houses anymore and we're all stuck trying to buy 4+ bedroom overpriced shit...
There's no way this could be bad for society at large especially when driving is pretty much mandatory outside of cities. Nah, it couldn't be bad because it's good for corporations. Not that anyone cares. Externalities is just a fancy word...
Remember: can't afford life? Move to a low cost of living area and drive 2 hours to work! ....wait...
The article even mentions some research that in the suburbs people with cars tend to get better jobs.
Every "decent" job I've had I had to travel 30+ min by car, I would never have had the same opportunities without a car.
That's going to break down when Starbucks in San Francisco/etc. can't find workers because the cost to drive 20 miles to work is greater than what they're being paid. That day when low-paying big city jobs disappear because no one can afford to get there and work there is coming very fast.
It's already here. They aggressively recruited among the higher middle class urban kids and poverty kids who can use mass transit. And now they have a very stubborn union movement.
That's a lot of words to say "Cartel". Car...tel... get it?
I'm here all day, folks! 👍
Also see: collusion... market manipulation... fauxflation.
Yet another point in the argument for a government corporation that makes basic shit and provides basic services across the board.
I've noticed this trend in other businesses, as well.
They've realized it's more profitable to screw over fewer people harder than it is to try to appease more customers with better deals. The most notable example of this to me would be the fast food industry.
It's a win-win, because they get to expend fewer resources due to fewer customers and they make more money with each transaction.
Fuck greed and anyone who supports it.
To extend and clarify a bit, if you want a base model they don't have, you have to pay a delivery fee. At which point you might as well buy the higher trim on the lot.
Even worse, you have to pay a delivery fee on the cars in stock too.
Well not officially. At least not where I've been car shopping before. But that might explain the 2,000 dollars in dealer add ons they refuse to sell the car without.
Oh hey almost exactly like the housing issue... Greedy fucking companies realized they made more making McMansions than starter houses so no one makes reasonable houses anymore and we're all stuck trying to buy 4+ bedroom overpriced shit...
There's no way this could be bad for society at large especially when driving is pretty much mandatory outside of cities. Nah, it couldn't be bad because it's good for corporations. Not that anyone cares. Externalities is just a fancy word...
Remember: can't afford life? Move to a low cost of living area and drive 2 hours to work! ....wait...