Car market tanking... again!!
 

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/20...inues-tanking/

I think the car markets issue is they're treating the car market as a POP culture business venture that's ever changing whereas in reality. The culture of the buyer is more traditionalist. More of gradual transitions over racing to be the first to do something but then competition giving up everything to follow the trend.

Everyone jumped off the sports car market for crossovers because the sports car market went thru a downturn. Truth is. The sports car market just needs to be fed in the same way as the crossover market or sedan market. That's not happening.

If you notice? Theres a popular sedan. The civic. Because the type s and type R embody what people expect from a FWD sedan. Price, features performance. All the boxes are checked. As opposed to say a mazda 3 that's beautiful and fast looking with a slow engine, or a VW GTi is slow looking with a fast engine.

People just want to recognize what they're buying. An FRS costing $33,000 when you can buy a Z is stupid. Theres 132hp difference and a 10% deficit in handling. The pricing makes no sense.
Pricing a 350hp Z with an equal handling muscle car that has 110 more hp with an optional muffler and NOT giving the option for modern tech is a recipe for disaster.

Then now... every car company makes the same car in small medium and larger.
You can buy the sedan crossover and suv with identical front ends wheels and features. Just miniaturized.

Remember the Nissan hierarchy of interesting cars?
180sx
Pulsar
240sx
Sentra se-r
Nissan maxima
300zx

None of these cars resembled each other and all were relatively affordable. Today theres a lack of imagination in design, driving characteristics and design expression in the name of cost cutting.

The upswing in chevy up until a year ago was they gave each car it's own individual design.
A volt was a volt
Indistinguishable from a cruise a malibu indistinguishable from an impala etc. They just neglected driving characteristics in half the cars....

The first company that can make every car have an exciting drive while having unique and distinguished models will win the car market over.

It may look like everyone wants crossovers one year, sports cars then next, luxury cars the year after then pick up trucks. When this happens. Dont **** down your sports program to sell trucks. Dont turn a basic crossover into a luxury crossover, dont make drastic changes. Keep the trend of what made the car popular alive. Take it easy. By not chasing trends and following the tradition of each models philosophy. Sales may slow down. But eventually... when u get back to the update of a model losing sales. Dont add stripes then charge 3k more and insult the intelligence of people. Upgrade the interior, redesign the headlights or give the motor and suspension a tune. The art of creating excitement beyond gimmicks is gone. The media shoves EV's down our throats like we care. We dont. Sales reflect that. What sales do reflect is that giving sport driving characteristics with sport styling and practicality mixed sells. Being reliable and trustworthy in the market sells. Having a unique look sells. Cuz the civic is ugly as sin. But it's different from other designs practical and fun to drive.

It's time for car companies to go back to their roots!!! Otherwise. It's better to drive your snooze mobile till the wheels fall off. Hence dwindling sales.

I've been looking at Aston Martins lately :yum:

The reason is the price of new cars is out of control. Folks paychecks have not gone up anywhere near the costs of new cars have. It's just simple math. Folks are financing more for longer which is not a good idea. Its a good way to loose your butt trading cars ever 2 or 3 years. You never get ahead of the depreciation. You just keep going in the hole.

Solution: 120 month auto financing. That will buy the economy another 5 years or so...

:icon08: :facepalm:

No other real options it appears. If wages cannot increase what choice do you have and also no company is marketing affordable cars overall in the market. Its simply profit via higher average transaction cost. How can one feel sorry for the auto makers when they price out their own customers.

Sadly, we have yet to learn from the lessons of Henry Ford, and we continue off-shoring to reduce costs without considering less decent paying jobs here mean less people buying your cars.

My income went up, and I buy higher priced stuff. If it goes down again, it's back to buying heavily used at a steep discount. Simple math.

19 Vantage w/ 2k miles at the auction buy it now 144k

silver with black wheels. i kinda dig it.

also, 18 DB11's are down low-mid 100k mark already

This is why I believe people will keep their cars even longer and companies like Autozone, and O'reily, etc. will keep going higher and higher as owners keep and fix their used cars. One of the VERY few individual stocks I own and up my stake in every now and then. Financing options will just keep getting more and more stupid as time goes by.

Couple of thoughts on this.

Read an article on Fox News about car loans last week. Basically says that they are getting out of hand with the length of them. People are really getting up side down on them from the beginning. And it's creating a debt bubble.

GM has said that it's 2020 fully loaded 3/4 ton 4x4 diesel truck will be the first truck priced close to $100,000. Other trucks are getting close to that. :shakes head: The C8 Vette looks like a real bargain compared to the truck.

There is something else at play as far as-longer term planning that auto makers are doing. Ford, Porsche and others are convinced the era of the POV is coming to an end. Ride sharing and car subscription services are viewed (sadly, rightfully so I think) as the future of car “ownership”.

Younger folks don’t see cars like we do, it isn’t Viewed as one of our unspoken constitutional rights-freedom of movement, it’s just an appliance and a pain in ther *** to own. This combined with increasing urbanization makes car ownership a dying attitude. Ride hailing apps and if you’re into cars/have disposable income a car subscription service (no insurance requirements, new car every month to use etc, different pricing tiers) makes more sense.

Car people will be th ones hanging onto and modding used cars and that cottage industry will survive and go on.

In this reality, pickup trucks and cuvs and entry level sedans make the most sense bc people movers are good taxis and trucks appeal to more rural folks who will be the last to give up private car ownership.

The way we view horse ownership now is a good analogy to car ownership 20 years from now, a hobby that is a niche market.

The only sports cars that work in this world, will be high end expensive ones developed with platform sharing to control cost and mostly used in top tier car subscription services offered by Porsche etc. (they’re already offering these services btw).

We’re actually going backwards in our lives bc of this. Prior to the mass production of affordable automobiles (thank you Henry Ford), freedom of movement was restricted to wealthier folks who could own a horse drawn carriage an keep a driver too, or own horses. The majority of the population if they wanted to move about the country or landscape were dependent on a large company for rail travel or a stagecoach ride to fixed destination points. The car democratized transportation, improved access to employment opportunities and affordable housing and helped make our country what it is today.

Now the suburbs are viewed with disdain, urban shoebox living we’re told is better, houses are being made with less emphasis on garage space nd we once again cannot move about without the control from the govt or a corporation. We are selling out our freedom for a cool app on our phone and a supposed “lower carbon footprint”. Even though cow farts contribute more to global emissions than autos do. They’re coming for our steaks next btw.

To me and as several of you hit on it already - with the increase in price of new cars, the wages not going up for a lot of people; people do one of two things - either they buy used or they look to get on payments for longer than 60mo. I mean, I remember doing a 72mo loan was considered crazy but now you can get a 80mo loan so it ensures that the person will wind up trading it in with negative equity.

So manufacturers wind up getting rid of half their underperforming rides like what Ford has done and you are left with one sports car, one economy car and then nonstop SUVs and crossovers. I won't be surprised if you start to see some 'staples' from GM go away soon and other manufacturers follow the trend.

As for the cost of vehicles - I recently had the opportunity to drive around in a new Sentra for 4 days. The cost of the vehicle was close to $22k. I'm not saying that I could find better used options for that cost......but I could have found A LOT of better used options at that price. The engine was meh at best, I felt like I was sitting soo high that it felt like a I was in a crossover. FirstWorldProblems I know - but that car made me appreciate everything the Z was - analog, very direct steering, great brakes and decent power but tons of fun.

Case in point a well optioned out Lincoln Navigator will set you back well NORTH of a 100 grand. Thats right.

The EU has it already mandated for no more fossil powered vehicles after 2030.

Hence, why I still have my 2004 Dodge Ram 3500 dually that is paid for. I am not paying 60k to 90k for a truck with all the emissions troubling crap that breaks like crazy. Not happening.

That's one of the reasons why I'm hanging on to my Power Wagon. A new one is $60,000 plus and loaded with computer nannies that suck for off road use. :shakes head: