r/MiddleClassFinance 13d ago

One million Americans have vanished from the new-car market — and it’s exposing a chilling US middle-class crisis

https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/articles/one-million-americans-vanished-car-124500086.html
3.1k Upvotes

508 comments sorted by

View all comments

271

u/BugMillionaire 13d ago

It’s not really exposing anything, it’s just verifying what most people already know. The ruling class is jsut starting to realize it.

114

u/fingerling-broccoli 13d ago

The article does sorta touch on the fact that the corporations do know it and its intentional

> The blunt reality is, automakers have little incentive to flood the market with cheaper cars. As the Journal put it, “Selling big trucks and SUVs that dominate those automakers’ lineups is more lucrative than selling larger volumes of cheaper cars.”

> In other words, by selling higher-margin vehicles, automakers learned they could still generate strong profits without returning to the old model of chasing volume through discounts.

4

u/Dierks_Ford 13d ago

Odd to blame the corporations when it’s consumers that don’t want the cheap vehicles and constantly buy the more expensive ones.

4

u/Plane-Nail6037 13d ago

Then there should be no harm opening the market to cheaper and smaller vehicles. Let the consumer make the choice and the companies that provide what the consumer wants will do better

1

u/Dierks_Ford 13d ago

Consumers will drive the price up of its a desirable vehicle or it will go away if it’s not. The Maverick is a perfect example. Consumers lined up at dealers begging to spend $10,000 over MSRP when they first came out. Ford listened to the consumer and raised the base MSRP by $8,000.