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Originally Posted by stein_325i
For those mentioning where is the average price paid vs cost of a vehicle, there is a brief mention in the article.
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Yes. Interestingly, $35,373 + $4,734 = $40,107 which is very close to the $40,179 mentioned as the average price of the new vehicle. However, it still isn't absolutely clear what statistic is actually meant to be represented by that second number - vehicles being acquired by consumers (which would include leases and cash buys in addition to those being financed), or vehicles being built by manufacturers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nioh_lbbm2
All that article shows is that Americans are choosing to buy vehicles that are on "average" 40K
It doesn't mean cars on average are costing that much and people "need to prepare to spend 40k" as the article states.
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True. Of course, even if the average vehicle being purchased/leased is $40k+ or heck, hypothetically $50k or whatever, that still would not mean one "*need* to prepare to spend" that much, since it's always an option to simply choose a lower-than-average priced vehicle. In other words, regardless of where the median is, one can always choose to be an outlier. In that regard, the language used in the article never had any hoping of being correct, strictly speaking.
That said, the trend away from passenger cars has certainly had an effect on selection for those looking for cheap transportation. If you look at prices of SUVs vs cars for any brand (well, any brand that actually still sells cars, that is), it is almost universally the case that the SUV lineup will have a higher price floor than the car lineup. Indeed - without studying the data, mind you - we may be only a half dozen or so small car discontinuations away from the lowest priced vehicles being sub-compact SUVs starting at roughly $20K, which would be a big jump from today's mid $1X,xxx sub-compact car starting prices. Not that I am saying all those cars *will* be discontinued soon, but it certainly is possible over the next generation or so.