Want to know why used cars cost so much?
It’s because new cars cost too much.
The industry trade magazine Automotive News reports that the number of new cars you can still buy for less than $20,000 is single digits – and falling. That the average price of a new car is now more than twice that, $42,000.
For some context, as recently as five or so years ago, every non-luxury brand had at least one model that started under $20k.
Just wait until the only cars you can buy are $40k electric cars.
Joe Biden has promised that “we’ll take, literally, millions of automobiles off the road.” What he meant by that, in his fumbling way, was that his pushing of electric cars – and trains – will take millions of non-electric cars off the road. But what may well happen – what is already happening – is the taking of “literally, millions” of new cars off the road, by keeping them parked on dealers’ lots.
The Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) for new car sales has collapsed to around 16 million – a number that seems big if you don’t know know what it was.
It had been on track to crest 18 million – but that was when Orange Man Bad and gas prices low. Also, the economy not bad.
Today, it is very bad.
Consider how the price of gas – just gas – has affected what it costs to drive. The average person is now spending close to $50 to fill up the same 15 gallon (average) tank that it cost him about $30 to fill up just ten months ago. For the average driver – who fills up once a week – that’s $100 more per month to drive the same car, about $1,200 per year.
Now consider the cost of food. That $100 buys what $60 bought when Orange Man bad. On just these two fronts alone, the average person is paying several thousand dollars more per year to drive – to live – than he was paying just two years ago.
Just ten months ago.
But the cost of cars continues to increase – because the price of government is unrelenting. Old Corn Pop’s promise to “take, literally, millions” of cars off the road is being fulfilled by taking – literally – millions of people out of the showroom.One of the ways this is being done is by pressuring the car companies to “electrify” – and most are complying, at least partially. Toyota – one of the last major holdouts – yanked the gasoline V6 out of the Sienna minivan in favor of a hybrid drivetrain, which means two drivetrains. One of them is the underpowered (for this size/weight vehicle) four cylinder engine; the other one is the electric motor/battery pack that augments the power of the undersized four. This does increase the 2022 Sienna’s gas mileage, which now averages (city and highway) 36 miles-per-gallon, which is an uptick over the 2021 V6 Sienna’s 19 city, 26 highway.
