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Every product like this has to compete against a 5-year old Toyota Camry, Corolla, Prius, you name it. It compares poorly. Heck, it looks like it’s so expensive that it also has to compete against brand new vehicles in the “cheapest new car possible” category. Cars like the Nissan Versa eat this thing for lunch from a value standpoint. You could probably even buy a brand new Mitsubishi mid-size SUV for the price and stuff the whole family in (a bit crude compared to the competition, but it’s reliable and repairable!) > Priced at $18,500, it also costs about half as much as the current average sales price for a new passenger vehicle ($35,667 as of March 2020). Looking at the average new sales price is almost misleading in itself. Only a certain kind of buyer buys a new vehicle in the first place, and they’re often led in that direction by financing - not purchase price. Funny, a few years ago I bought a brand new Scion iA (a Mazda 2 rebadged as a Scion, now sold as a Toyota Yaris sedan). The sticker price was $16,499, purchased for $15,999 with dealer incentives (Scion was a no-haggle brand). It had all the features you’d want: A/C, power windows, decent infotainment system with Bluetooth and USB, four seats, four doors, 40MPG fuel economy, and on top of that it was an IIHS top safety pick at the time. It gets service at any Toyota dealership across the country. Since it had four doors and seats I could even drive Uber/Lyft with it. Just look at how unpopular coupes are in the 2020s (The new Mustang is a crossover SUV! Smart left the United States! The Fiat 500 and New Beetle were discontinued!), people just don’t sacrifice two doors to save five hundred bucks off the sticker price anymore like they did in 1995. |