Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it. Sometimes it feels like that’s what’s happening with vehicle affordability. It’s the beginning of a new year, so we’re getting a lot of data about 2023, and yeah, cars are expensive. So expensive. It’s getting better, maybe, at the same time that it’s getting worse.
Welcome to The Morning Dump, our daily feature where we look at the car news and try to paint a larger picture for you. Anyone can tell you the sales numbers, and we’ll do that, but we’ll also try to tell you what it means.
Yesterday, we learned that BYD edged out Tesla for electric car deliveries at the end of last year. Today, it’s Kia and Hyundai reporting good news.
We’ll end the dump on a weird rumor about Chinese automaker HiPhi, because rumors are fun.
17.9% Of Monthly Car Payments Are $1,000 Or More
The nature of inflation and modern economies is that, over time, many things will get more expensive. Gone are the days when you could get a movie, popcorn, and a candy bar for a quarter.
In theory, wages also rise along with prices and complex goods get relatively less expensive. Back when a movie cost $0.10 a computer cost, not adjusted for inflation, almost half a million dollars.
Cars seem to be resisting this trend. A base Mustang GT in 1965 cost, inflation-adjusted, about $28,000. Today it’s about $41,000.
Cars, however, are faster, safer, more comfortable, and loaded with technology. That 1965 Mustang looks great, but it would get smoked by a modern Mustang and would crumple like a can of Pabst in an accident with an F-150.
So, that’s part of why, in Q4 of 2024, approximately 17.9% of new-vehicle monthly car payments were at or above $1,000. That’s up from 17.5% in Q3 and way up from the 15.7% share in Q4 of 2022, according to Edmunds. There’s a little more to it than that. Trimflation plays a role, of course, as automakers have added more and more features and reduced the inventory of entry-level vehicles (though that’s improving).
Interest rates are up. According to the same Edmunds analysis, the average APR on new vehicles climbed to 7.4%, up from 6.5% in Q4 of 2022, but flat since Q3 of 2023. The average new car payment is now $739 a month for a 67.8-month term with a down payment of $7,074.
Cars are more expensive, interest rates are high, and the inventory of affordable vehicles has been restricted. Additionally, the lack of available used cars and off-lease used cars is down, making used cars still quite expensive, which puts pressure on new car prices.
The final factor is, of course, the existence of very wealthy people in the United States.
92.5% of equities are held by the top 10% wealthiest Americans. A record high concentration. pic.twitter.com/YhGQC0j0cL
— Lyn Alden (@LynAldenContact) January 1, 2024
The share of $1,000+ car payments usually goes up in Q4 as very wealthy people can do the thing most of us can’t, which is buy someone a car as a Christmas or Hannukah present.
Is the news all terrible? Not quite.
“On the surface, car financing appears to be following the harsh trend line of the past few years, with average monthly payments and down payments reaching all-time highs for new vehicles,” said Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’ head of insights. “But there are some very encouraging signs as we kick off 2024 when considering the makeup of deals in the latter half of Q4 2023. Incentives are slowly coming back as inventory improves. Most consumers are looking for low APRs with longer loan terms, so the growth in those loans is helpful to lure consumers who have been sitting out due to adverse financing and pricing conditions.”
That’s good news and the Edmunds analysis showed that 0% APR loans were available for longer terms, which means that they’re not just limited to shorter loan periods.
Kia Sets Sales Records, With Cheaper Cars Performing Best
The first bit of news from Kia that’s worth noting is, of course, that it set a sales record of 782,451 vehicles, up 13% year-over-year. Kia is killing it. The cars are great. Even without tax credits for sales, Kia’s EVs and hybrids were up 41% year-over-year.
But here’s the fun thing. If you look at Kia’s best-selling SUVs/Crossovers they generally sell better the cheaper they are.
Ok, well, first a big caveat. The exceptional Kia Carnival was extremely delayed during the pandemic and those vehicles are finally coming to the market and sales of the Carnival were up 93%. This thing rules. I just put 2,000 miles on one and it’s fantastic. A review will hopefully come this week.
Putting that aside, let’s take the crossover lineup from cheapest to most expensive:
- Kia Seltos ($24,390) up 17%
- Kia Niro ($26,840) up 25%
- Kia Sportage ($27,090) up 12%
- Kia Telluride ($35,990) up 11%
Notice a trend? Generally, there’s more action at the bottom of the lineup. Some of this might be due to availability and vehicle age (the Niro was recently redesigned), but it just goes to show how much demand there is these days for affordable cars.
Hyundai Is Also Having A Good Time
Hyundai, the sister company of Kia, also had a great month/quarter/year, posting an annual increase of 11% over 2022 to a whopping 801,195 models. We’ll see how that compares with everyone else, but Hyundai and Kia are moving up in the market.
Gone are the cheap and fun Hyundai Veloster and Hyundai Accent, so the most affordable Hyundais are now the Elantra and Hyundai Venue. And no surprise, over the year the Elantra saw a 14% increase in sales (though down in Q4 and the Venue was up only up 3%).
Hyundai’s still reasonable crossover, the Hyundai Kona, was also up dramatically this year by 24%, though by volume, it was the Hyundai Tucson that had the biggest impact on total sales. In total, the Tucson was up 20%, meaning more than 209,000 of them were sold last year.
Hyundai and Kia are in the sweet spot of offering cars that look and feel premium but can still be purchased at a relatively reasonable price.
What’s Up With HiPhi?
Here’s a tweet from contributor/Chinese car watcher Tycho de Fiejter that caught our attention this morning:
HiPhi in trouble in China?
HiPhi is our favorite new Chinese EV brand. They made totally mad cars with mad lights, mad doors, and madder dashboards. I went to two of their shops in the summer, and stayed for hours checking it all out.
Perhaps it was all a tad too mad for the… pic.twitter.com/2BYwADc91k
— Tycho de Feijter (@TychodeFeijter) January 3, 2024
I’ve been watching HiPhi as well and it seemed like the automaker was starting to consistently sell cars so this is a bit of a surprise. More on this as we learn what’s going on, since it’s just at the rumor stage.
What I’m Listening To As I Write This
Apple TV+ is out with a new series based on Edith Wharton’s posthumously published novel “The Buccaneers” and the soundtrack is killer. Here’s Warpaint’s Emily Kokal and Miya Folick covering “North American Scum”
The Big Question
What was your most recent car payment? Mine was $500 a month at 1.9% for 48 months.
Top graphic image: Saturday Night Live/YouTube
I think the $1000/month average payment is a “Spiders Georg” situation with a smaller number of very high payments from very expensive vehicles or lots of negative equity skewing the average. A breakdown of most common payment ranges and an income modifier would give a better sense of what the majority are paying. My seat of the pants guesstimate based on loan calculations for stuff I care about gives more like a $500-700 range.
My current payment is $312/month on an off lease Mazda CX-5.
My only car payment I’ve ever had was my 2012 Prius v I bought in late 2019.
6-year loan; ~$11,500 total; $1,000 down payment; $187/month, 5.14%.
I got it not long after starting my first job post-college and didn’t have a lot to spare. But as my situation improved I was able to double and triple up on payments. Ended up paying it off after 3 years.
I’d do the same again, if I had to. $1,000 is roughly my rent.
That 17.9% number is eye-popping…. but by itself not very illuminating.
What’s the average car payment broken down by annual income?
I suspect that number is skewed – with wealthier individuals buying multiple cars. I fall in the “upper 17.9%” of incomes… and there’s no way in hell I’ll ever get locked into a loan like that.
My last loan? $350/month at next to nothing interest for 48 months. Paid off years ago. Admittedly… I put half down.
While the average loan is fascinating… I’d be far more interested in learning the _median_ loan.
Median loan and the average percentage of income the loan represents would both be a lot more informative.
I’d consider a $1k car payment if there was a drop in other areas like fuel that kept the net reasonable and the vehicle made my life meaningfully better than my current car.
Now $650 a month with $100/month in fuel savings would make a lot more sense for me. Especially adhering to my philosophy of “buy once, cry once and keep it for a long time.”
As a Niro owner, PLEASE stop calling a Niro a crossover! The only “crossover” bit of it is the body cladding. It’s not that tall, it’s only available in FWD. It’s a damn hatchback.
Oh, and my Niro’s payment is $446/mo for 60 months at 6.74%. Unfortunately it came off of lease in the middle of last year as rates were going bananas. Hopefully they come down a bit and I can refi at a lower cost end either save a few bucks a month or shorten the overall loan.
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it might be a crossover. Just own it, my friend.
Quack…
I also drive a Niro, and you’re right that it’s just a hatch. It has car-level ground clearance, car seating position, and if it were a little longer it’d make a decent wagon.
That said, a lot of the crossovers are like that. I think that the line between hatch and crossover has blurred. If it’s not a hot hatch or pretty small, they’ll probably call it a crossover.
Because nobody wants to buy something if it isn’t called a crossover, a similar thing happened when “station wagon” became showroom poison and every one that could possibly be reclassified as an SUV was
But I have it on good authority that everyone wants a brown wagon. Are you saying the commentariat doesn’t represent the entirety of the buying public!?
But, yeah, you also see that starting with minivans right now. The Kia Carnival MPV is certainly a minivan. I almost hope it catches on because I’d like to see more vans available and it seems like minivans aren’t coming back without some help.
A diesel brown wagon with a manual, dammit!
But that would exclude Miata, which we know is always the answer.
I have both a Miata and a Brown manual wagon (sadly, not diesel). The two combined are the ultimate year-round solution.
A brown Mercedes Benz 240TD with an OM606 swap, tuned injector pump with thicker threads, and a manual conversion would be the ultimate iteration of this meme…
GM tried the same basic idea with the Chevy Uplander/Pontiac Montana CSV/Saturn Relay/Buick Terraza – just in a really half-assed, ham fisted manner, as is tradition. The idea was to graft a nose onto the vans to make them look more SUV-like in profile, thereby tricking modern parents into buying them. The CSV in the Pontiac’s name even stood for “Crossover Sport Van”, which was kind of the working project name for all of them
My local Kia dealer advertised it as a “Compact Crossover.”
Like, c’mon man
“The share of $1,000+ car payments usually goes up in Q4 as very wealthy people can do the thing most of us can’t, which is buy someone a car as a Christmas or Hannukah present.”
My wife bought her 20-something nephew an annual transit pass hoping he would get his ass out the door and get a job. She’s the absolute queen of passive aggressive.
How many Kias and Hyundais are being bought by people who had their previous one stolen? There must be a graph.
Paying $410 CDN right now for a six year 0% term. Car is exactly what I wanted and still do. No regrets.
He’s fortunate to have access to a usable mass transit system. That is not most of America.
I agree. While I believe public transit should be treated much like a utility we could all have some expectation of access to, in his case I would substitute the word fortunate with entitled. It’s not really a civic debate but a personality or character issue.
I’ll be honest… $975 a month for 60 months at 1.74 percent. It’s a 2021 RAM 1500 bought new about 2 years ago when a 2 year old used truck was pretty much the same price as a new one. It’s our tow vehicle for our camper.
I’ll keep it until it’s 8-10 years old like I do with all my cars that I buy. I usually buy 2-3 year old used cars that are off-lease, but it didn’t make sense to do that 2 years ago.
No shame in paying that kind of money if it’s within your budget.
no shame in that payment with this interest rate, I’d be paying this to the exact cent all the way up until the final minute of the final day
My car payments have been $135, $231, and $450. $1000 would be more than my mortgage payment, and I’m not sure I could stomach that.
However, the last one was when I finally could afford to buy what I wanted, and as a result I’m still driving that one after almost 9 years. The previous cars were more compromises and I had the itch to upgrade much sooner than that.
That’s where I’m at. I want to get something I actually want, so I’m my frugal side saying to keep what I have is fighting the side of me that wants to drive something more engaging. I think if I had spent a little more when I bought my Niro, I might have had an easier time not spending more now.
Yep. This is a life lesson I learned the hard way, repeatedly. To be fair, when I was just out of college I couldn’t afford what I wanted so I didn’t have a choice, but I have definitely learned that in many cases it is worth it to get the nice thing the first time and not need/want to replace it a few years later. It was a hard lesson for my frugal nature to take, but buying something twice is almost always more expensive so I got over it. 🙂
The funny thing is that I have long internalized it on things like shoes and furniture. I remember that I can’t afford to buy cheap. But, somehow, I convince myself I’ll be happy with a car that’s economical (though I did spring for the top trim to get ventilated seats), even though I should know better.
$1000 is barely more than my property tax. 🙁
Per month?! Yikes!
Yes, but the kids I don’t have would have had access to a great school system.
Federal minimum wage is $7.25/hr. If you lost whatever job you had and then had to resort to a full time job that paid that minimum wage, you’d probably lose the house or get kicked out of it for being unable to pay the utilities in addition, even if the house were fully paid off.
I think a society that does that to people isn’t much of a society…
Lost a very well-paid job in ~2016 and started a business with a partner that went bad in a year. Tried a couple of things and ended up taking a job at drastically less pay that also offered less responsibility and no travel.
Made it through, but I had a decent severance and I was able to profitably sell a rental property once the housing market bounced back. If we had kids we probably would have been living in a van.
And that is why people are bartenders.
I knew someone that worked 3 jobs to make ends meet. Not only did she live paycheck to paycheck, but she had no savings, never had spare money to do anything fun, her hair was grey in her late 20s, and her teeth were falling out. When COVID hit, she lost 2 of the jobs and ended up homeless. Conventional wisdom in this country says it’s all her fault. The truth is it wasn’t. She made all the “right” choices and still got screwed.
A friend felt sorry for her and bought a $1,000 clunker for her to live out of, a 1992 Ford Tempo, and with her remaining low wage job to pay the fuel and insurance with, she had some form of shelter, and she was probably the happiest she’d been in years. She saved up her stimulus checks and got a used RV.
Without that gift(hand out), she’d probably have been permanently on the street. The car still runs to this day.
At least in Michigan, unemployment has not been raised in way too long. Back in 2010 when I was laid off, the cap was $362 a week. No matter what you made before. Last year it was still the same.
Thing is the company would do a rotational layoff, so you would get laid off for 2 weeks at a time. So it was not much sense to go job hunting.
Fortunate not to have had a car payment since 2001. Bought with cash ever since. We put away money every month in a “car fund” mutual fund to cover maintenance and eventual replacements. Bought 6 cars for cash in the years since.
We’ve followed the car fund model as well. Started off with a series of cheap, high mileage, rusty cars until we could afford nice used ones. Those 70s/80s high mileage cars I could actually wrench on. Harder to do with today’s cars.
Have only bought two new cars in our 47 years of car ownership. One was a mid-aughts Elantra that came with 0% financing, so we took our only loan on that car, even thought the car fund would have covered it.
Well mine was $435 for 5 years starting in 6/22, paid off in 4. No car payment for 17 years. That’s a savings of $88,750. Car still looks almost new and I enjoy daily driving an almost classic car.
Would wealthy Americans really be in this?
People actually wealthy enough to throw around cars at the holidays wouldn’t be going through traditional auto finance channels.
Sure they would, if the interest rates align. Wealthy people tend not to spend their own money whenever possible, and that means taking advantage of whatever the best option is. When there’s 0% financing, it’s a no-brainer, but even the current auto loan interest rates (for well-qualified buyers, who are not paying the average interest rate) are well below what one expects to earn with decent investments.
The really interesting thing to see is the nearly 68 month average loan. People taking out 72 and 84 month loans are usually doing so to lower the monthly payment at a cost of higher interest rates. I’d love to see more data on the average percentage of monthly income the loan accounts for.
I feel like they would have established lines of credit rather than personally filling out loan applications at a car dealership and sitting through the TruCoat pitch from the finance manager.
I don’t think there’s any way out of the Trucoat pitch. I just always say no. I always come in with my own financing from a credit union, but I always give them a chance to match it and they usually do. Car loans are usually one of the cheapest loan types you can get from an interest rate standpoint.
The only time I haven’t had the TruCoat pitch was buying my last Subaru. The finance manager said their customers usually do a lot of research and know exactly what they want when they come in. I think he just skipped through some pages on an iPad and showed me where to decline.
If it was reverse psychology, it almost worked. I caught myself almost wanting to ask more about the things he was skipping past.
IMHO, wealthy means someone else sits through the TruCoat pitch for you. Otherwise, what’s the point?
When my wife bought her Forester she got the same treatment of “is there anything you want to add on to protect the car?” Without mentioning what any of that was, lol. She said “no, I don’t think so?” and the finance person said “ok moving on then!”.
I was completely floored by this interaction sitting there. But it worked in that based on that experience alone I don’t think my wife (who could give a shit about cars) would buy a car anywhere else.
Maybe, but those are still going to be categorized as auto loans. The luxury dealers are better about things like the hard pitch and they’re used to taking care of those clients. And they tend to also have relationships with financial institutions and the ability to get good rates.
My loan was not through the dealership, but it’s still an auto loan. I’d have to see where Edmunds draws its data from; if they are drawing from dealerships, that would absolutely skew this data somewhat, but I’m not sure by how much.
Likely not. If someone has established lines of secured credit they’re going to be backed by other assets more significant than a vehicle. Unless the loan is secured by the vehicle, it’s not a car loan.
I bought my Miata without my wife’s knowledge or approval. If I took the money out of savings before buying it, she would have known. I got online ‘auto’ financing. The loan was technically an unsecured personal loan (they never held the title or a lien). BTW, this was in 2007 when lending was not based on reality. I got an online personal loan from a bank I had no relationship with and the rate was ~2%.
I get what you mean, but I’m not convinced they’d go that route. Using the vehicle as collateral isn’t onerous and the rates are usually great, even for us schmucks. Wealthy folks do tend to have plenty of assets to back lines of secured credit, but they don’t need to. If you can avoid tying up other assets to buy your car, those assets remain available for other use.
Using assets as collateral doesn’t block use of them. As long as your collateral isn’t sold off or drastically reduced in value it’s all the same for you unless you start missing payments.
That’s the main use I was talking about. That or being used as collateral in another loan. The car as collateral for buying the car is a pretty good deal, though.
The GMC dealer that I’ve bought 4 cars from skips through the Trucoat stuff fast for me and doesn’t give me much of a pitch. When I bought a used CPO BMW for my wife, they gave me a hard sell on almost $36,000 of extras on a $40,000 car. Like it would have doubled the payment! They tried for about 20 minutes with me.
Weird. The BMW dealer I was working with seemed like the most easygoing dealership I dealt with, though I also did not get to the point of signing the dotted line. That said, I’ve found the easiest way to avoid the extras pitch is the willingness to walk away. As soon as you make it clear that you don’t need them to sell you a car as much they need you to buy it, they can suddenly slide right past the extras they’re “required” to pitch to you. Even Kia dealers can strip the deal down to just the car at that point.
Just do all the haggling over email then tell the salesman you plan to spend a maximum of 30 minutes in the finance office. They will give the closer a heads up that you aren’t biting and you’re in and out with a new car. I did this with a Honda and a Subaru. The Subaru people were easier to deal with.
The worst part of haggling over email with multiple dealers is keeping the emails straight – and then getting each of the dealers to stop harassing or spamming after you’ve made your purchase.
I had multiple people emailing me from the same dealership – often sent from different email domains. Before I even figured out where that email was from I’d be getting another from the same dealer following up.
Yeah fair enough. The nice thing about buying new is that the car is a commodity, you don’t need to see it in person to make a deal.
I know people with generational wealth beyond my imagination, and they drive Chevys and Kias that they personally bought from the dealer. I don’t know the mechanism of payment, but they probably did whatever their wealth advisor told them to do. Anecdotal, yes, but I live in an area rife with family money and you see way more Subarus than fancy cars.
Sounds like New England.
Coast of Maine!
I’m a bit south of you on the same coast, dealing with the same kind of rich people. Living frugally is a point of pride for many. It’s pretty specific to the Puritan parts of the US, though.
There’s a reason for the “thrifty New Englander” stereotype.
I own a Fit, and I’ve seen more Fits in my visits to coastal Maine than anywhere else. And I’d describe myself as frugal too.
Man, I wish I had that kind of wealth. I’d have built vehicle prototypes in my teens and possibly been able to do something exciting with my life early on, and all I’d have needed was Kia or Chevy money to do it.
Low end Chevrolets and Kias are generally safe purchases without massive outlays. Aside from rolling the dice on a used car and getting lucky, this is one of the cheapest ways to drive.
The problem with low end (and I’m guessing you know it) cheap used cars is that the previous owner was probably cheap on the maintenance side as well.I guess playing Russian Roulette on car purchases is some peoples idea of a good time. I’m not one of them.
You’d be surprised.
My wife was an auto loan collector for Wells Fargo a while back (about as fun as it sounds) and a shocking number of people with delinquent accounts were people who absolutely could have paid for their vehicles with cash. Doctors apparently, were the worst about this. For some people with the means, the car loan that they hastily agreed to at the time of purchase was a matter of convenience more than anything else.
Not all wealthy people are good with money.
The wealthy people I know just pay cash for a car and be done with it. No extra money spent on interest and fees.
I would love to not have car payments. But, unfortunately, my employer mandates that my personal car be no more than 4 years old and cost at least $35,000, so I’m kind of stuck in that cycle, my two other cars are obviously owned outright, I’m just not really allowed to use them for work mileage
Uh…what kind of employer do you work for?
Yeah, those are some weird stipulations where I would be noping the heck out of there pronto! What if the car is older, but still valuable? Like a 1969 Camaro for example?
My realtor friend mentioned having this requirement when he was showing me his new caddy. His firm targets…upscale clientele so management wants to project a certain aesthetic. I didn’t ask if his employer offset the cost.
Questions need to be asked. Do they contribute anything towards this requirement? Are they paying you commensurately to offset this? If so, do you only get to use this for work purposes and not personal use? Do they contribute to, or cover, insurance? I assume this is a sales job or something where appearance matters (I could be wrong).
Of course they contribute, I get an average of 53.8 cents per mile, which is to cover gas/insurance/maintenance/car.
It’s sales, but not like you’d think, I mostly call on construction sites and building materials manufacturers, don’t transport clients in my car and they rarely, if ever, even see it
Thanks for the clarification. That said, I think the current federal mileage reimbursement rate is $0.655 per mile. I know that other places have their own ways of calculating that, but where I work we simply go with the current federal rate, which seems to be satisfactory.
Mine is variable based on how many miles I drive, the more I do in a month, the less per mile I get – ranged from 43 cents in February (2,084 business miles) to 60 cents in January and August (655 miles and 863 miles, respectively). Won’t know the December amount for another few weeks.
The more you drive, the LESS you get? That’s really sketchy. I don’t know what you make, but on that fact alone they sound terrible to work for. If appearance is so important to them, they should supply you a company car.
My employer uses the Federal mileage rate and is surprisingly easygoing about vehicle choice as long as it gets the job done:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53279073650_a6d22436d6_c.jpg
That picture is *chef’s kiss*. It works on so many levels!
Thanks! I had to drive from Seattle to White Swan and back for that photo, so it earned me a pretty good reimbursement, too.
I love that photo.
It’s not really that crazy if you’re visiting or transporting clients. This is essentially Prius money.
I don’t think there’s really a trend to the Kia sales and affordability. The Seltos was just facelifted and is in a growing segment, and like the Niro the Sportage was also redesigned for 2023 and is in the most popular segment. The Niro being up 25% is good, it deserves more attention than it gets, but it’s still not a big volume seller yet, the only ICE vehicles it outsold in Kia’s lineup in 2023 are the discontinued Rio and Stinger. The Telluride remains Kia’s 3rd best selling vehicle and I bet most of the ones sold stickered over 40k. And the Telluride is now one of the older basic designs in the Kia lineup and is up against several new or redesigned competitors yet there’s still growth in demand.
Last payment was $500, 0.9%, 60 mos, paid off last spring. I think that’s actually higher than the people I know that bought cars in 2023, but they had trades with equity which I didn’t when I bought. I would now if I did, and could still technically swing such a payment even, but it would be foolish for me to do so. I spend more on housing now (partly by choice, had a roommate back then), and that’s only likely to continue to increase. Finally enjoying no car payment and want to do so long as I can.
Never had a car payment. BUT, my wife’s car broke down this morning. So, I get to go home to a brand new shit show. Serp belt slid off. I was just telling my colleague this morning (before my wife called) that I was waiting for this to happen, as I noticed the whole front end of the motor was covered in oil, including the belt. I closed the hood, crossed my fingers, and resolved myself to have to fix it “soon”. Well, “soon” is 2 days later.
You either regularly pay a monthly fixed payment, or you roll the dice and pay once in a while (which could be a LOT).
I always subscribed to the idea that there is always a “car payment in anyone’s life. Tt may be to the bank, but the costs of no monthly payment will appear as repair costs. Every time I have paid a vehicle off I start saving half of what the previous payment was every month. This helps prepare for repair, or replacement.
This is a good idea, for sure.
Very true. A lot of people who rely on used cars also live paycheck to paycheck and have no money in the bank. When their car needs a $1,500 part to continue getting them to work, and they don’t have the money even if they know how to do the repair themselves and have the tools, they’re screwed…
A $20k EV with a decent range could be a boon to this demographic, as it has the potential to save them money when financed over the duration of the warrantee and would come with that much needed warrantee.
I couldn’t agree more. Cheap EV’s are going to make the world such a better place. Broken record here, but I can’t wait til they release a vehicle that is simple, cheap, and electric. 1 motor, small/med battery, NO FRILLS. Just electrify the base trim model and be done with it.
Aaaaaand that’s why poor people will stay poor. A $20k car is still going to be a $300/month car payment for ten years. I’m dying on a $14k car right now. Granted, that’s because I went with the 4 year deal instead of 5+. Thankfully I make good money, but that car payment was NOT in the budget when I bought my house mere months before I was forced to buy the car (was rear ended – car totaled). It’s basically meant no date nights and dialing back my fun Fridays with friends, but I couldn’t imagine how someone who makes under $20/hr would be doing it
Huh? a $20,000 loan for 5 years with current rates is around $400 a month
A $20k electric car with an additional $7.5k tax credit would be cheap enough to offset gasoline costs of a 15 year old 25 mpg ICE clunker if the owner drives it enough, nevermind that clunker’s maintenance costs.
Unfortunately, no one is making such a car for the U.S. market and the current incentives were designed to encourage the purchase/finance of $60,000+ electric CUVs/SUVs/trucks… which will do nothing to help those who need a car for their job yet are struggling just to keep a 15 year old clunker on the road. Getting these people into EVs, AND saving them money in the process as an incentive to do so, should be the goal.
As it is, the working class are mostly wary of EVs, with valid reason(none of the offerings with at least 200 miles range are remotely affordable for them to buy or upkeep), and EVs have become a political football in the culture war in part because of this.
An EV that puts an extra $100+/mo in the pockets of a low income person vs their 15 year old clunker by saving them money, after they’ve made the payment for the car, would be a very attractive proposition.
EVs will not be for everyone, but if the technology was used responsibly and available at an affordable price, they definitely could be useful for most people. Currently, they are not, and the bottleneck isn’t the EV technology on that issue.
Unfortunately, I think the only cars that still qualify for the full tax credit are 50K+.
All of which have massive 60+ kWh batteries, massive amounts of tech/bells/whistles standard, none of which have sub 0.20 drag coefficients, most of which have used software to prevent non-dealership repairs, and most of which have deliberately designed unrepairable battery packs made to last no longer than the warrantee period.
Total waste of EV technology most of these cars are. An electric drive system can easily last over 1 million miles and half a century without much in the way of maintenance, but this potential is being squandered on perpetuating planned obsolescence and filling up landfills with more crap, just to extract as much money from people as possible. Many of these resources used have no known economical means to recycle them, either.
It’s disgusting.
‘Murica!
Modern ICE cars are better but not by much. With advances in engine tech and aerodynamics, we could have 100 mpg cars. But nope, with every advance in efficiency comes more bloat, more weight, more fancy features, more HP and speed that is well beyond necessary. Sure many people love that, but many people would also love a basic car designed for simplicity and economy.
New cars are designed for the upper 20% of the population able to make payments on all of the excessive crap that come with them and want to show off to people who don’t generally care anyway.
The rest of us who are concerned with things such as fuel economy, reliability, overall operating cost, whether it can be repaired, have to make due with the leftovers on the used market, and the depreciation rates of what cars exist on the used market tell a story all their own about what most car operators actually need and want.
Reliable/efficient/economical sedans/hatchbacks and work trucks from both the U.S. and Japan hold their value the most, because they are the closest fit to what working Americans that buy used actually want out of a vehicle, and even base models are coveted. European-made luxury SUVs loaded with crap and two-ton exotic supercars have the highest depreciation rates.
And Ford just raised the price on the Lightning again! Funny that the XLT went up $7500… wonder how they came to that number.
https://electrek.co/2024/01/03/ford-updates-2024-f-150-lightning-prices-best-selling-ev-truck/
Gee, what a “coincidence”…
So, a Chevy Bolt?
A Bolt is probably close, although even it could probably be further simplified and cheaper. Move away from the current NMC batteries to cheaper LiPO or similar as it sounds like they are planning (and also a slightly smaller battery, but with faster DC charging), swap the base 17″ wheels for 15″, get rid of extra plastic cladding and such. It would be nice to even ditch things like the center screen/backup camera if they weren’t mandated.
More importantly, they should toss aside all the fad styling cues and streamline the crap out of it to maximize range for a given battery cost. The current Bolt has a drag coefficient of 0.31, when something in the 0.1X range should be targeted.
LiFePO4 batteries would probably be the best choice. With that chemistry, you could get away with a single string of high AH batteries, in an accessible location, with minimal BMS electronics and a simplified thermal management system so that it is repairable outside a dealership, with a battery chemistry that has the potential to remain reliable for multiple decades.
BYD is much closer to this ideal than is GM. Given GM’s talent and resources, the opposite should be the case.
I’ve got my eye on a first gen. I’ll take the risks, I’m handy and park in my driveway. I like them.
It’s not really available anymore now that the world has gone crazy, but back in 2018-2019, you could get a fiat 500e for about 8k, and a first gen e-golf for about 13k. At those numbers, for someone who lives in suburbia that’s an excellent deal. That’s how I got my golf, I traded my ranger in towards it and drove it all through college. I was saving enough from the reduced cost of gas to be ahead about $15 every month, and the lack of a headache from needing to do vehicle maintenance made it much easier to focus at school. Fewer days of missed work due to car troubles also saved me a lot of money.
If you can charge at home or work, cheap EVs are a cheat code for working your way out of poverty.
Although sometimes there’s mostly an exception: It’s so nice not having a car payment for years, hardly any repairs, & pretty much always reliable since I have a Honda
I miss my Honda’s. I still have my eye on a 2012 Accord Coupe V6 MT. I think one will be in my family at some point.
Nice! Never had one w/ a V6 but heard they’re good (depending on the year) Currently have a 2014 Accord sedan and it’s great, especially not having to worry about it at all w/ low maintenance. Used to have 2 late 80’s Accords- both 5-spd/flip-up lights…they were awesome
Ugh. Probably a worn idler but it’ll need that oil leak fixed (valve cover gasket?)
Hope your mechanic has a loaner or you can get a good deal on a rental.
We have no car payments and older vehicles, but that’s only because we have a decent mechanic and are used to hoopties. The car-payment money goes to important things like travel and horse feed.
I replaced the idler a few years ago. It’s almost certainly the oil leak. I wiped oil smudge off the idler pulley before I pulled it out. It’s amazing, it made it 2 miles before slipping off after me identifying it. After driving too many miles since it’s last service. AFTER having been in the garage for the previous three days (Happy New Year!) getting the right rear suspension replaced.
My BMW post-it note HAD 12 items on it when I went to bed last night. Now it has more.
Horse feed == car parts! 🙂
First and last car loan was in 1996. $175/mo for a 1990 Pontiac 6000. Something like 9 or 10 percent interest. Paid it off in 2 years.
Since then I just bought cars from private sellers, never for more than $1500. I’ve had good luck so far finding ones that last. IMO private sellers are usually pretty honest, and if not then it’s usually pretty easy to tell if the car is any good or you’re being lied to. Where as dealers are professionals at covering things up. Some dealers are honest, but lots of sleazy ones out there too.
There’s a rule somebody once told me that I live by to this day. If you can’t afford it outright, you can’t afford it. Payments and loans are lies to yourself that you can. You’re in debt with your time when you go with a payment system or a loan. I don’t have $30,000 on hand to buy a new car, but I could have $400 a month for a car loan. That means I can’t afford the car.
And before people argue against me, payment systems and loans were not designed for individuals. They were designed for systems and governments because systems and governments were the only things stable and lasting enough for the scheme to work. That’s why historically you hear of tithes and taxes but not loans until you get up to the level of international relations.
The easy availability of long-term credit for individuals artificially increases the amount of money in circulation, driving up prices for everyone including/especially those who want to pay with cash in full, further forcing the reliance on credit or renting/leasing to avoid doing without.
A massive change is definitely needed. There’s no balance anymore and most people who work for a living are getting screwed in all directions. This is especially true with cars, housing, and education.
True. Aside from my first car which I financed as a teenager, my only debt is the house. I too don’t buy things unless I can afford it. I don’t need to keep up with the Jonesses. I don’t use credit cards with one exception. A Home Depot card, no maintenance fees, which I only use when I get offers and need something for the house anyway. For example by using an offer I saved over $50 on a water heater when mine was leaking. Then paid the card off immediately.
I use credit cards for all my normal purchases. I never carry a balance and my credit score has been 780+ for years now. Not using a credit card can be fairly disadvantageous in a lot of situations.
Yeah, the fact that people take a weird pride in not having a credit card and accept hotels putting crazy holds on their checking accounts or having their debit cards skimmed by sketchy gad pumps or not earning any extra points toward airline tickets is crazy to me. Don’t blow your budget, spend what you can afford, and pay it off every month and a credit card isn’t functionally different from cash, but it’s more secure and comes with some extra benefits
To each their own. I don’t keep all my eggs in one basket. I keep separate accounts at different banks, and a minimum balance in the one that I use for online purchases or hotels, or if needed for traveling. So if it gets hacked they don’t get much. So far so good. I don’t fly, and don’t travel much except for mainly car shows, eat at home because it work better for me. I don’t need an extravagant life, I’m happy staying local and relaxed. I use cash for most things, especially gas stations because of skimmers. Around here you don’t have to pay first. My local bank is excellent about taking care of fraudulent charges, and has blocked many before they had a chance to hit me.
I do the same. I recently took out a loan for my AC, for which I could have paid cash, but it’s 0%. Even that I’m paying off early. This is how you get an 820 credit score and cash back too.
I am typically weary of taking loans and balances, but the only balance I’ve ever carried is a similar thing. Lowe’s credit card automatically does 6 months 0% financing over $300, and usually around the new year or spring does different 12/18/24 month promos too. As a young first time home owner, the 18 month same as cash allowed me to upgrade all my 30 year old appliances without breaking the bank. Obviously you have to remember to pay it off before it runs out but that was never a problem, usually once I got close enough to the end I just bulked paid it early, lol
What if you CAN afford to buy the car outright, but interest rates are so low that it makes more sense to keep that money elsewhere. Even conservative investments can yield more than the interest rates that have been around just before rates jumped. Heck, the interest rates were less than inflation, so it would make more sense to pay the loan with ‘cheaper’ depreciated dollars in the future.
What you’re saying makes sense on a $500 purchase, but at $50000 the difference could be worth the time to explore.
For sure if the rates are good enough. My student loan is at 3.22%, so it makes zero sense to pay it off early when I can get over 4% in high yield savings.
Idk about that. If I only paid for what I could pay for in cash, I’d be buying a sub-$2k car that would likely need repairs. I got a 2014 Sportwagen used, something like $13,000. Put $1500 down and I pay $223 a month at 1.9%. For that I have had a car that has required almost no repairs outside regular maintenance. It’s still got many years of life left and hasn’t hit 65k miles yet, and will be paid off next year. While I couldn’t afford it outright, the monthly payment is a small fraction of my income and I’ve had no trouble paying it, even at my last job where I made half what I do now.
But, I agree with you in situations where people are buying vastly more than they can afford and spending a significant portion of their monthly income on a car payment with high interest rates. There’s a lot of situations where making reasonable payments on a car within your means makes more sense than buying something cheap with money that could go towards a down payment on something newer, safer, and more reliable. But the key point is “within your means,” and a lot of people will stretch their budget to take out a loan on something they can hardly afford, so they can have the biggest/newest/nicest car, instead of something they can actually afford without spending a significant amount of their monthly income.
I think the key is for people to buy less car than they could handle. Put aside a bit of the monthly extra money in an interest bearing account, and hopefully when it is time to replace the car bought on credit, you could buy a decent used car outright.
A loan may be necessary, or almost no one would have a house, but for me the goal is to never get a second loan to meet the same need. A loan is to get over a hump; now try to stay on the other side of said hump.
Sounds like a corollary to the broader concept of “live below your means”. Of course, far too many people don’t have that luxury.
Yep, that is the hard part.
It’s not even that. The problem is wages haven’t kept up with costs. In 1965 a mid-optioned Ford Mustang cost around $2,400 unadjusted, while median income was $6,900 unadjusted. Total cost of living was around 24% of the national median income (or around $1,656 of that $6,900) and debt was relatively unheard of in that era, so that meant you could actually afford the car within the year as your total expenses at just $4,056 wouldn’t exceed 75% of your income. These days a mid-trim Mustang costs $39,000 while median income is $57,200 unadjusted. Total cost of living is 55% of income, or about $31,460. Leaving you with $25,740. Of which these days you also have a median debt load of 20% if income, so take $11,440 out of that, leaving you with $14,300. Meaning your total expenses have exceeded 75% of your income. And that’s not including stupid shit companies force like paid subscriptions for basic functions like being able to save files locally to your computer.
You can’t live within your means because the corporations priced us out of the means way back in the 1990s.
You’re not going to hear an argument from me on any of those points!
The countless people who successfully buy things like houses and cars on credit beg to differ. This is one of those hopelessly simplistic financial perspectives that doesn’t acknowledge the existence of gray areas in life.
My personal philosophy on loans is that you’re paying money for time. Could you save up for four years to buy that car outright instead of taking out a five year loan? Maybe, assuming you don’t need a car (which, let’s be honest, you probably do if you live in the US). The loan allows you to buy the car years earlier than you otherwise could. Is that worth a few thousand dollars in interest to you? That’s a question each individual needs to answer for themselves. For some the answer will be “no”, for others “yes”. Neither is wrong, it just depends on your tolerance for financial risk (and there’s risk in every single thing you do with your money, including paying cash for everything. The opportunity cost of tying up cash that way is the reason even filthy rich people often take out loans).
It also can’t really be applied to housing.
Rents are often higher than a mortgage. If you wanted to save for 30 years instead of paying mortgage interest over that period, you would still need shelter for those 30 years.
Yeah, and as I briefly mentioned the same probably applies to cars for most people. Maybe you could pay cash for a beater, but then you’re going to be making a “payment” of some sort for repairs and now you’re saving even less for your future cash-only purchase.
Finance just isn’t simple enough to be summed up in one (or even a few) hard and fast rules. A lot of it is down to personal preference – do you sleep better knowing you have no loans? Great! Do that! Do you sleep better at night knowing you have a newer, more reliable car to get you to work the next morning? Great! Do that instead!
Debt stresses me out. I’m sure that most non-psychopaths would prefer not to have debt.
I’m lucky enough to have a spare car which allows me to keep cars longer than most could. If there’s a maintenance issue with one, someone just uses another until I get the time to fix it. We usually have one vehicle still under warranty because that makes my wife more comfortable.
If the choice is would I rather have my mortgage paid off vs. not paid off, well yes, I’d obviously want it paid off.
If the choice is would I rather live in a house I could only afford with cash, drive cars I could only afford with cash, and so on vs responsibly borrow money to enjoy the short amount of time I have on this earth, I guess I’m a psychopath.
Not what I meant. There are some people who will use every nickel as collateral for a dollar loan.
They actually prefer to live like that.
That would indeed stress me out as well, but your post made it seem as though you would lose sleep over a mortgage or modest car payment, both of which are obviously standard middle class American experiences.
I’d feel better without a mortgage, but I’ve become fond of indoors.
Which is the other extreme from the “no loans ever” crowd. Hopefully at this point I’ve communicated that there is a huge spectrum of financial responsibility between those two ends and somewhere in the middle is where most people are going to be happiest. Exactly where you fall depends on your personality and specific financial situation.
Unfortunately, this mentality leaves you wide open for being ruthlessly exploited in this day and age.
Barring trust fund babies, most people will need debt to buy a house. Unless your level of disposible income is quite high, you will probably finance at least part of a new car purchase, and for a while it was quite silly not to (0% APR? okay, I’ll put the rest into T-bills and pocket the premium, literally cash back on the purchase).
The real question regarding debt is “what is my interest rate on this debt, and what else can I use the money I would spend up front for?”.
The ruthless exploitation is in all directions, no matter what choices you make.
Take the debt, and you’re liable to over time pay twice as much or more for the product than the amount of debt you took out.
Don’t take the debt and try to save for the item outright, and inflation eats away at the purchasing power of your savings and the credit ratings agencies may even penalize your credit for not being an obedient consumer slave. All because fiscally irresponsible people can’t stop running the money printer and must to keep the pyramid scheme going.
Exiting policy has forced this paradigm, and I don’t think it was an accident or coincidence. People in debt generally do what they are told and don’t make waves. Most people aren’t ever able to build significant wealth.
The smart thing to do is to try to give over as little of your money as possible to corporations, regardless of whether you are buying outright, or taking on debt, while trying to take advantage of any opportunities to earn passive income(preferably above the real rate of inflation). Most people are never in a position to do the latter, and sometimes their pay is so poor they are forced to do the former and still don’t earn enough to make ends meet, and end up juggling debt around.
The time I was in debt was certainly a very stressful time. I never want to relive it.
In the case of a mortgage, you pay about 3x the loan amount over the life of the (30 yr) loan. I’m using 30 years as the normal loan since that is and has been the normal loan period in my area since at least the lat 80’s.
I know 15 year loans are more common where housing is less expensive.
I am tolerant of ‘normal’ levels of debt. I wouldn’t spend $70k on a vehicle when one at half the price meets my needs, even if the lenders say I could afford the more expensive car.
This is why I rent a family member’s basement out for cheap while making six-figures, and stack. While not everyone has this as an option, it does avail me the ability to save for a modest home in flyover country within a few years. Before this was an option, I split a roach-hole in the hood with roommates.
My standards aren’t high. I’ve been homeless before and camped out in bandos, so having a home at all is very nice. If only there was something I could do to get rid of property taxes. The idea is to be able to minimize the amount of toil in life and the amount of money others can extract from me, so that I don’t need to work as much.
Bonus: if the right sports car comes along, with this lifestyle, I can buy it in full.
As tolerant as I would have been of these living conditions, my significant other would never allow it.
I need my independence to keep my sanity, so I have a mortgage with a house to myself and property where I can do what I want. While I could live in a hut in the woods, or in a van down by the river, I choose basic comforts. So while a mortgage isn’t a necessity, it is to me until it’s done. And I’m going to get it done as soon as I can, since I hate the thought of paying more than I have to for the same thing.
Thankfully I can work on old cars, and know which ones to seek out that are reliable, and cheap and easy to fix when needed. I keep my cars for decades not years. That brings me peace and joy. Same with things in my house. I’m happy with decor straight out of the 80s. To change it just because it looks dated is wasteful to me.
I grew up poor and have had many poor years, when even cutting my own wood for free heat, I couldn’t afford food. No phones, no cable, etc. I don’t need much. Spending unnecessary money stresses me out, because I know I could be poor again. But a handful of things I do it when they’re really important to me. I’m happy with a simple life. To each their own.
Privacy is valuable.
Truth. I’ve seen multiple job layoffs eat away all of my hard won savings multiple times… Had I gone and done what I wanted instead of what was prudent, I’d have lost everything, multiple times over.
We lived in my in-laws’ attic for as long as we could manage (with two small children), but our savings account grew no faster than the growth of a down payment on a house. We finally gave up, borrowed money from friends, and now we have a mortgage (neither of which is even possible for many people).
Somehow, even though I’m paying $4,400 rather than $1,000 every month for housing, we are saving more now. I think that the horrible living situation caused us to spend more money on treating ourselves in order not to fall apart mentally, whereas now, we are quite content just faffing about the house and riding our bicycles around town.
And while rents may be lower than a mortgage right now, they definitely won’t remain stable over the next ten years.
They will. As people lose their homes in this housing crisis, they still need shelter. More renters = higher rents, at least in areas where adding new housing / rental stock is not really an option.
I rented out my townhouse instead of selling it in a down market. The tenants were paying me way more in rent than they would have spent on a mortgage for a similar place at the time. I told them this, but they were just planning on renting for a couple of years and didn’t want to be held back with a contingency when they were trying to buy.
There is also a saying I’ve heard before: that you shouldn’t buy depreciating assets. If both statements were accurate people would only lease, but only if they paid the full lease amount in advance. Sometimes good sayings sound good, and may be a way to live for some, but no one thing is right for everyone.
All items in a capitalist society demand money, and all are designed to separate you from all the money you earn, and then even a little more.
That’s why I buy cars at basically rock bottom, when there is very little demand anymore and most depreciation is done. By then its reputation is known if it’s good or not. Keep them long enough (and long as you don’t have to worry about storage fees etc), and between nostalgia and inflation, they appreciate. All my cars are worth more now than what I paid for them. But they’re not for sale. I’ve had offers too.
I don’t make car payments. I wouldn’t trust any institution that would be willing to finance the kind of stuff I drag home.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52802596126_36822bc552_c.jpg
I love your Saab 96.
Thanks! That’s the one I drove to work this morning. I spent part of this last weekend replacing its tachometer so I had to take it out for a spin.
“I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member” – Groucho Marx
What’s behind the Volvo 66? A Maestro?
Well spotted! It’s a 1983 Austin Maestro Vanden Plas. Here’s a slightly better view of it from a few years ago. I no longer have the other two SAABs or the ’59 Skyliner:
https://live.staticflickr.com/5643/20823528894_a801a7a6a3_c.jpg
Nice! Does it have the troubled R-series engine (1.6) or is it a 1.3?
Thanks! It’s very much the troubled 1.6. I’m delighted by the fact that its Wikipedia page is mostly a summary of its shortcomings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL_R-series_engine
I am delighted to be able to tell you that most of the non-negative content on that page was added by me, referencing a back issue of Le Moniteur de l’Automobile.
Nice collection!
I have one payment at about $500/mo, 5 year loan on a 2021 Colorado at 1.89% interest that’s got a couple years left on it. I could have paid it, off but put the cash in a 2 year CD instead at 5%. Paid off my wife’s 2019 CRV when I sold my 18 Colorado to Carvana during the stupid COVID-times. As much as I’d like to upgrade her to something quieter for long travels, she’s happy with the CRV so I’m just trying to be mature about it.
FYI, historically flipped cars every 2~3 years so trying to be better about it for the future. Kids in college tend to force maturity.
I have more in my savings than my car loan and student loans combined. Now that I’m at that point, I am always tempted to pay them off, however my student loan interest and car loan interest rates are both below what my high yield savings account is making me in interest right now. Doesn’t make sense to lose that to me.
You’re absolutely correct about that. I quit paying extra on my mortgage when I realized that 3.25% is far less than that money would make over the next 20-some years sitting in a fairly safe mutual fund.
I thought about that, as at 4.75 my mortgage is a little less than a high interest savings account or CD. But that mortgage is compounding a lot more interest against me, than the interest I would earn off the money I could save in 20 years. So knocking down the mortgage is the plan. After the house is paid off I’ll be able to put away a lot. Besides, if I make it to retirement, a reverse mortgage could be an option. I’m not leaving this house anyway unless I go to some facility to croak.
To be honest, when it comes to a mortgage I don’t even look at the returns on “safe” options. Over that timespan you should be able to count on 7% (and almost always more) returns in the market, and you have enough time to ride out any downturns so the real risk is miniscule.
That said, 4.75% isn’t as much of a slam dunk and if you prefer to lock in that return I’m not going to argue. That’s a safer return than even a savings account since savings interest rates can change. Once you pay down the mortgage that 4.75% is forever.
The only new car I ever bought, 2014 Kia was $260 a month for 60 months at 2.5%. paid it off a year early. I now want to replace it with another new Kia, but can’t bring myself to spend $500 for a similar model. I can’t see how people can spend a mortgage payment on a vehicle. Guess I’m in the wrong business.
A guy I used to work with lives in a 5th-wheel camper that is completely paid for. He has a nominal fee for parking it at a campground.
He got a 3500 Sierra a few years ago, around $1,000/month payment. That pretty much is his mortgage, and the rent on the spot for the campground is his car payment.
It’s still wild to me. He was (and actually still is) the first person I knew of with a 4-figure car payment.
Monthly payments are meaningless without noting for how long your loan might be – or if it’s a never-ending lease situation where you don’t own anything at the end.
I’d posit that the only meaningful data point is OTD price on your purchase.
If financing goes out to 96 months, maybe there’s a problem.
Can’t argue with that. It’s shame that that’s even a thing, necessary or not.
It looked like the study was for purchase loans, and they gave the average term of these loans.
“The average new car payment is now $739 a month for a 67.8-month term with a down payment of $7,074.”
Man, I wish I knew what was going on with HiPhi. But being as I don’t visit the website-formerly-known-as-Twitter at all, I’ll never know…
Guys, I come here for car stuff. I don’t wanna get redirected elsewhere.
Do you have some kind of blocker on? I embedded the tweet so it should show the full thing so people don’t have to click through to Twitter/X.
Some corporate blockers do not show embedded Tweets/Xeets.
Honestly I’d rather you just screenshot Twitter with a link. I have to enable their tracking to see the tweets, and I feel dirty.
People who block Javascript for non-local sites like myself don’t get embeds. Stuff like that is also just broken on mobile Firefox even without NoScript running. It’s something inherent to the framework you guys used to build Autopian so I don’t blame you, but I do get annoyed at the framework designers.
It’s scary how many different domains are running scripts on some sites. The Autopian isn’t as bad as some, but isn’t as good as others either.
I once counted twenty six outside domains running via JavaScript on the old site. I imagine it’s gotten even worse now. All of this shit with JavaScript becoming an albatross around everyone’s necks just because Apple got bitchy that they couldn’t control Adobe, so they cut out Flash from running on iOS and then refusing to adhere to the new HTML5 standards W3C was proposing to replace Flash because once again they couldn’t control the standards.
At work, so who knows what’s on here.
It shows this:
And then has me click through to see everything else.
I do kind of second DadBod’s comment about a screenshot, maybe combined with a link for those that are less militant than I am. I know its more work, but honestly… f’ that site.
That’s what I see, too. I’ve deleted my Twitter accounts (well, except for my first one, since I haven’t been able to get logged into it in years) and don’t have an interest in going back there at this point.
yeah, twitter embeds are broken for me as well, which is fine because I never want to click through and if it’s on twitter I don’t care.
I had a coworker once brag that he had just mailed off the last payment on his car, so now he could go trade it in on a new one! Hooray!
Personally, I’d rather spend my money on tools than interest. Added bonus of spending quality time in my garage.
Kind of why I’m cross-shopping (daydreaming) a gently used Miata NC PRHT with the ND2 RF. Similar enough driving experience for my wants as another weekend cruiser (we’ll see how long the ’97 Mustang GT convertible is for this world in the spring, thanks PA winters!) but $13k vs $35k is a pretty big delta.
We gave up car payments back in ’06 or ’07, I think the last one was around $300ish. Now when we need a new car we make monthly payments to our savings account until we have enough to buy a new one. This is why we don’t have $50K cars in our garage.
I know this isn’t possible for everyone and it took us a long time to get to where we are. We drove our old but paid off Toyotas for over 10 years each while saving up to buy something newer. It ain’t fun but it’s possible if you’re halfway handy with a wrench.
$600ish on the wife’s Subaru Ascent we bought last year, though we pay closer to $700 so we can shave a month or two off the loan.
Car prices will not come down so long as banks are willing to write longer and longer loans. Won’t be long before you need to take a 7-8 year note to get a three-figure payment.