That's because the cheapest trims are still way too fucking expensive. If I'm gonna pay $35k for a car, I might as well pay $39k to get the extra bits. But I only want to spend $20k on a car
Mitsubishi mirage MSRP was under $15k until 2023 and under $20k until they stopped making them in 2025.
Hyundai accent MSRP was under $15k till 2020 and under $17k till they stopped making them in 2022.
Hyundai venue MSRP is currently $20,550. Kia K4 $22,290
In very recent history cheap affordable cars existed, but sales numbers were abysmal bc people didn't actually want them despite actually being really good on gas and fairly reliable, the mirage had a combined mpg of 39 and the accent 36mpg combined, certainly not modern hybrid mpg but they weren't hybrids just cheap "small" cars.
But even today theres dozens of options under $30k let alone $35k
Its cause in America most people finance their cars so they rather buy a car thats 10k more but only ends up costing like $100 more per month for a better car, I work in a phone store and see people do the same thing everyday when buying the newest iPhone
Omg people are so bad with phones, I can't tell you how many people I know who are genuinely convinced their phone is free bc they get a new free one every 2 years or something with their plan.
Meanwhile they spend $60-100/mo/person and unlimited plans without the free phone bs are as cheap as $30/mo.
Like no your phone wasn't free you paid $40/mo extra every month for 2 years and traded in the old too. So after trade in it was $960.
Going on 3 years with my $400 Motorola thinkphone that performs in every way identical to a new flagship smartphone.
Point taken but it's total bs to say your POS Motorola performs the same as a flagship. Maybe for your particular use case, and for most people's it does, but let's be real, those flagships are light years better in build quality and capability.
Your right, those free phone contracts is how those big phone companies trap you, whats funny is a 4 year old iphone basicly does 90% of what the new iphone does
I wish it would be 2 years, the last ones from my carrier want 48 months plan even the ones that the give with 0€ increase (cheap Motorola or TCL) have a 48 months permanece contract.
I feel like too many people are watching episodes of The Price is Right from the 80s and thinking a brand new tricked out car that cost $8-9k should be like $18k because they don't actually understand how severe inflation has been, especially over the past decade.
I gave actual MSRPs? Those are recent and the actual numbers....
And those aren't even that small or low powered. A 2 door commuter at 1500lb curb weight and 50hp could easily cost under $15k but people wouldn't buy it bc for some reason every car has got to be a big 4 door hatchback.
It's a cultural thing, we need to get back to being ok with small low power cars as commuters/grocery getters. If you need a big van/SUV bc you have a large family or you want a sports car or something then fine, but the obsession with commuter cars being massive is just silly.
Like I'd absolutely buy a 0.5L(500cc) 40hp engine ultra compact 2 door, no back seats, commuter car if they sold one, but no one does. Shit like that needs to exist.
Believe it or not I was agreeing with you. I specifically mentioned tricked out (read: premium options) cars and only one of your examples made it to 2026 by your own admission.
Edit:
Like I'd absolutely buy a 0.5L(500cc) 40hp engine ultra compact 2 door, no back seats, commuter car if they sold one, but no one does. Shit like that needs to exist.
Do Smart Cars not exist where you are? I know they're a Euro staple but they've been a thing in North America for a good 20+ years.
The slowest car available in the US was the mirage but they stopped selling it. It was 1.2L 78hp 3 cylinder 2100lb curb weight.
Now the slowest car on the market is a Nissan kicks with 10.4s 0-60 and 141hp 2L 4-cylinder but it's slow bc the 3,000+ lb curb weight and taller/larger profile. The lowest power car available is the Hyundai venue at 121hp 1.6L 4 cylinder 2700lb curb weight and 0-60 of 9.6s.
It's insane to me that these are the smallest/lowest power cars that are available at all here.
Uhhh is it really so hard to understand that a smaller engine is cheaper. And that a lighter smaller car can still be quick with a really low power engine since speed is directly proportional to weight and frontal area....
I want to know who's making a smart car with over 120hp other than EV smart cars. They don't exist. Or if they do they aren't cheap
Uhhh is it really so hard to understand that a smaller engine is cheaper.
Uhhh is it really so hard to understand that the US is larger than the entirety of the EU? Me driving 8 hours/500 miles one way across multiple states to attend an internet friend's wedding is nothing for an American.
What? Are you out of touch with reality? Driving 500 miles across multiple states maybe nothing for you. But it's a whole lot of something for many of us. That's a trip we'll take in an old beater in order to save on depreciation.
I’ve never seen a smart car in the US, I saw them everywhere in Europe though. If you bought a smart car here everyone would make fun of you, even prius owners
I've seen plenty of Smart Cars in the states; mostly in the NY/NJ region in the mid 00s. I've still seen plenty in the Raleigh area over many of the past 20 years.
As simple as it sounds, sales probably tanked because those cars are Ugly Afff lol. Seeing the Mirage / Accent / etc back then encouraged me to get a reliable Civic for 30k
Both the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla start at under $25k MSRP. Those are probably the best options for most. There's cheaper options from Hyundai, Kia, and Nissan also. As low as $22k MSRP. The venue, K4, kicks, Sentra, Elantra.
There's also even hybrids using Toyotas insanely reliable power split eCVT transmission, the Corolla hybrid at $25,175 and Prius at $28,755. The latter of which is a decent sized hatchback that gets 57mpg and this newest generation of Prius is actually quite powerful at 194hp so it's definitely not the slug the Prius is often considered.
Also Incase your not familiar with that eCVT from Toyota it is entirely different from belted cvts that literally everyone else uses. There's no belts anywhere and it chooses gear ratio by changing how two electric motors spin. It's one of the simplest, most reliable, and most efficient transmissions ever made
Wow, I'd actually never heard of an eCVT before..Ihave been car free for a couple years now but will probably be in the market next summer. Sounds more promising than I would've expected.
I highly recommend looking into a car with an eCVT. It's basically all the benefits of a cvt(no shifting meaning amazing efficiency and power) but it is actually simpler than a cvt, automatic, and even simpler than a manual.
Works by taking a planetary gear set and the gas engine spins the planet carrier, an electric motor(Toyota calls mg1) spins the sun gear, and a seperate electric motor(Toyota calls mg2) spins the ring gear which drives the driveshaft.
You change the speed at which mg1 spins to change the speed at which the engine spins in relation to the road speed/mg2 speed.
Also it allows you to entirely remove the alternator and starter since those jobs are done by either mg1 or mg2.
But this also means it's only possible to have a eCVT in a hybrid.
Toyota also licenses the tech out, the Ford Maverick hybrid for example uses Toyotas eCVT although it's a licensing agreement so Ford builds it.
Also all Toyota hybrids use eCVT including the Corolla hybrid for around $25k
Those cars will easily make it 200k+ miles if maintained properly.
The average commute in the US is 14 miles one way or 28 miles round trip. We'll just assume you make that commute 360 days a year even though there's only 260 work days per year(less it you don't include holidays). Because obviously you'll use your car for other stuff too.
Anyway that works out nicely to 10k miles per year. Which means if maintained properly the car will last 20 years.........
So the purchase price is only costing you $1,250 per year, so gas is costing you a similar amount, 10k miles per year at 35mpg average is 285 gallons or $1,000/yr at $3.50/gallon.
If your making the median salary or less then you shouldn't be buying a new car every few years.
Me and my wife make around $180k per year and our cars are 2012 Toyota Prius bought in 2018 with 90k miles for $12k, 2021 Hyundai accent bought this year for $1600 with 100k miles and $2000 worth of damage, 2004 Toyota Corolla(got totalled earlier this year) bought in 2019 for $1000 with around 120k miles, and a 2023 Tesla model 3 bought new towards the end of 2023 for $28k after rebates but it was used for our business we used to run and has already racked up 85k miles so it has still been mostly worth it.
There's literally no reason you MUST go buy a new car every few years. Older/used cars are just fine, and sure shit goes wrong and they need maintenance sometimes, my Prius is literally currently not running bc the engine threw a rod and blasted the side of the block out so it needs a whole new engine($3.5k). But it's still way cheaper than new normally.
If you genuinely believe that it's somehow a human right to have new fancy cars every few years then your worldview is seriously fucked up. If you cannot afford one then there's plenty of great options for way less.
I mean yea people are dumb and don't spend within their means. That's literally a huge part of why the US has no affordable car options, the more affordable options we used to have had abysmal sales numbers bc people just didn't want them.
And there's a reason that 6-8 year auto loans have gotten popular recently, to allow people to overspend even more on the cars they cannot afford and then when they go to trade it in after 3-5 years they'll have paid down such a small amount on the principle they'll basically break even on what's owed vs trade in value. So basically they are just renting a car but at a higher cost.
You mean on the "dealer added value"(markup) of the state of the art(completely standard trash) backup camera(that's legally required by law and comes standard)? Sure we'll drop it to $5k over MSRP instead of $7k over MSRP.
That's been a huge way they screw people in the US ever since 2018 when backup cams became legally required. Somehow dealers managed to spin it into up selling backup cameras and getting people to buy higher trims by pointing out it has a backup camera even though literally every trim including the cheap ones also had backup cameras.
Bc surely you can't expect below MSRP? After all the msrp is what the dealership paid for the car, they gotta make some profit.
And that's real shit you'll hear, dealers claiming the pay MSRP and are losing money at prices even thousands over MSRP.
Also don't forget it's not uncommon to get charged MORE if you have outside financing or pay cash. Since they literally make most their profit on the loans, and they are making a hefty profit on the sale too they just make so much from the loan it surpasses the already high sale profits.
Mirage my beloved. Cheap, great gas mileage and that thing is still kicking today. We have a 2014 one and it kicks ass, that thing drove my mom, me and now its a loaner for whoever ends up visiting my parents. Its awesome
The mirage is rough I had one as a rental. Great gas mileage. But it felt unsafe and like I was driving a go kart. If you have any real driving outside of a commute I would not use that thing.
Hyundai's and Kia's are known for being piles of shit.
If a car company can be known for being reliable then a car company can also be known for being unreliable.
It is well known that Hyundai's and Kia's are not good cars. Very specifically to the OP requirements is which lasting past 70k miles which is where these cars have a real hard time.
Lol Hyundais and kias USED TO have serious security issues which made them shit. They don't have those issues anymore and are very reliable and can easily hit 200k if maintained.
😂 ok bud. Some of the most reliable brands are suddenly crap sure. Only Toyota and Honda are more reliable, every single American and European brand car is dogshit compared to Hyundai and Kia.
We have 6 children. Three of them drive. We have two SUVs that are capable of 6 comfortably. But we need the trunk space many times for school sports and weekend getaways, so I’m looking at a larger vehicle.
My mom somehow got two kids and two adults around in a 1984 Dodge Colt when I was a kid, and later a 1990s Neon. It's amazing what you can do when you aren't addicted to having a flashy status symbol.
I’m talking about the 80’s. We never wore seatbelts and rode in the trunk area sometimes. Not sure where you lived but the police didn’t enforce any seatbelt laws in New York where I grew up.
For a car produced in the US thats not even gong to make the company money. You want something that doesnt exist.
Nissan dropped the only car that was under 20k MSRP in the US because they only sold between 15-20k of them a year. And it made them basically no profit.
The gently-used market is where you're shopping if thats your price point.
lol, I think this rational is so funny. People in modern day America believe they would have never been okay with slavery if they lived in the early 1800s, but they go ahead and buy products made from slave labor in 2026.
There’s not much I can do to completely avoid using products made from slave labor, but I do not advocate for adding more products that will increase the number of people being exploited for their labor. Isn’t this the same argument the left uses for guns? Even if it saves one life?
There's plenty that used to exist under 20k MSRP very recently. But people don't buy them bc they want big huge powerful cars.
Look at the mirage for example, it was always under $20k MSRP and sold up until last year. Or the accent. Or K4
And those aren't even small cars really. A 2 door commuter weighing sub 2000lb with 50-75hp would be insanely easy to turn a profit on at $20k, heck even $15k they'd be able to turn a profit.
But people literally refuse to buy those small low power cars while also crying that cars are too expensive.
Cheap low power small cars also tend to be quite reliable due to the lower power not stressing the trans or anything else as hard. And they are very good on gas.
And I'm not saying everyone should own a car like that. But if you have multiple cars at your household there's almost never a reason that you must have more than 1 large car. Have your crossover or SUV or van but then it's 100% on you if you think cars are all 35k+ bc you just ignore cheap compacts(which are still easy to find new $20k-$25k)
Not really. Toyota can sell new cars for $10k-$15k overseas. Those cars do not meet American crash or emissions regulations, but $5k-$7k more per unit should fix that easily
If that globalized car cannot be purchased because no one in that regional market can afford its sale price, then the manufacturer isn't saving money at all.
If consumers in Market A have shown through market studies and past experience that they will continue buying cars even if the price goes up, then the profit margins from selling at that higher price in Market A can help cover the losses taken from selling at a lower price that is affordable for Market B.
Nah just look at how budget cars used to be. Super low power, like 50-75hp, two door, so narrow you don't even get a third seat in the back at all, low to the ground, 15in or smaller wheels, etc.
The problem now is the obsession with everything having to be a big huge vehicle. Like the car you only use to commute to work and get groceries for some reason needs to be a 4 door hatchback.
99.9% of People won't even consider compact 2 doors anymore.
A company could easily make a 50hp, 1500lb, 2 door commuter, and produce it with zero slave labor while still making a good profit at $15,000 MSRP. But no one would buy it.
That’s exactly the point. The “bare bones” of a car are expensive; the “frills” are relatively cheap. I think much of the “I want no-frills cars again” movement comes from overestimating how much prices would come down. (And no, this isn’t driven by companies inflating the prices of base models; on the contrary margin tends to be higher on more expensive trims.)
You can get a brand new Venue for $20,000, a Trax for not much more. And that’s just MSRP. But that’s my point exactly. Most car buyers think the same thing you just described. “I might as well pay a little more and get the extra bits”
A car this cheap needs to be dead reliable, and do absolutely nothing else. Reliability is the only thing that matters in this price bracket, because for $20k I can get a lightly used Toyota Camry
Chevy Cruze scored between 80 and 87 its entire run so I really don’t trust jd power ratings. Hell even the sonic was like an 80 and that thing was hot dogshit especially the turbo models. Just look at the sonic subreddit and see how common it is for people to have 3-4 gallons of coolant in their car for how much that thing would over heat and eat coolant.
If you cannot trust scores then where amdo you get the idea the car is unreliable? How would one determine the overall reliability of a platform if you cannot use the very scores used to judge such a thing lmfao
Also the comment I replied to cited reliability ratings were poor when they aren't, so just because they're not the most reliable source of information doesn't mean the person who left this comment isn't just straight up lying lmfao
JD Power ratings are secondary to the market research they provide to their primary clients - car manufacturers. I’m sure it’s a completely reliable and not at all compromised score when they’re basically rating their customers products.
What are the User scores then?? Edmunds and Cars.com both give the Trax a good rating with its worst attribute being it's acceleration but nothing in terms of its reliability
JD power is well known to be a nonsense rating/award company.
They literally just twist the results or redo the "studies" until it gets what their clients pay them for. They get hired by companies for those ratings and awards, especially the awards which aren't given without paying them.
Me personally? The nearest Hyundai dealer from me has an SE Venue sitting on the lot, according to their site, yeah. But that probably varies by market.
This. I bought my first new car a couple months ago. (Been driving an old beat up 08 Ford Ranger for 8+ years.) Got a SE trimToyota Camry 2026 for 36k otd. The LE that is the base model was 3K cheaper. And honestly I didn't care too much about the extra bells and whistles. What made my decision was the color. SE was all blacked out and looked sleek af. The LE was white and I didn't want another white vehicle. Already spending over 30k, might as well add another 3k to the price and get the car that i think looks better and has some nice extra features.
Or pay $40k for a used electric Cadillac Lyriq with 19k miles on it. Paid an electrician a couple hundo to put in a plug. Please consider perspectives outside what the oil companies and car manufacturers want.
A Kia EV 6 wind (330+ miles) used with 20k miles is 26k USD. Thats going to get most people who commute to work and back probably under two bucks.
Please, please consider the idea of it. Seek ways to dodge those that want your money. The question is, are they trying to trick you? The answer is always yes.
Please, realize that you CAN do it. Please think about how to mitigate those that are trying to control you. Everything is a trick now. Plan for the trick stage in pricing and negotiations. It’s in all aspects of your life. You have to decide if the pleasure is a paid off house or a boat.
I promise you the paid off house is better.
A paid off house leads to a boat, if you want it.
I’d start with a kayak.
I’m the kind of guy that saves money for emergencies even when I made minimum wage, never puts anything on credit if not absolutely necessary, and never decides to buy anything over $100 without research. This year’s research project is solar. It will probably take me years to save up. It’s fine. I was mostly broke my whole life.
The best thing you can do about saving money is invest in the cheapest VPN. (And gardening.) The trick phase is now automated, and your internet queries might start appearing in your retail life. Because pretty soon, every time you want to buy anything, the computer is going to profile you for maximum payout. Airlines already do this. Always check a flight on a friend’s phone. It’s +50USD if you don’t buy that ticket right now and go back later.
The latter link shows real (inflation-adjusted) wage growth from 1999-2025 across all of the inflation indexes. But 2020->2025 showed wage loss across all indexes. So in the short term there has been wage loss, but over 10 or 25 years there has been wage increase.
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u/Plane-Education4750 10d ago
That's because the cheapest trims are still way too fucking expensive. If I'm gonna pay $35k for a car, I might as well pay $39k to get the extra bits. But I only want to spend $20k on a car