[lancesells]

I'm in the US and I don't see any current manufacturer lowering their price over time. They'll either have higher margins or they'll just add more features to raise the price.

  Average car price in 2002 was ~$19k. 
  Adjusted for inflation is ~$33k.
  Average car price in 2024 is $48k.

If a company was run in a more sane way where they want to provide cars at a reasonable price where the company can pay it's employees a fair wage then maybe that could happen. Instead, most US corporations pay employees as low as possible, take as much money from the consumer as possible, and have the excess go to executives and shareholders.

[mertd]

> I'm in the US and I don't see any current manufacturer lowering their price over time.

Have you checked Tesla prices over the last 12 months?

[lancesells]

No, but after having checked it looks like prices have dropped but also go up and down so word is still out if they keep dropping on scale or if it's just stock price shenanigans.

https://www.skills.ai/tesla-car-prices-analysis/

[stubish]

Watch Australia. I feel the same way about the incumbent manufacturers and their pricing and chasing the higher end market. But BYD has come and captured a huge chunk of the EV market, and that is before releasing their low cost vehicles.

[ianai]

They could really only do that as long as zero interest rates and relative wages permitted. Frankly I think they made luxury EVs to justify the battery costs early in the production.

The automotive industry is known for bad margins. Interest rates go up, willingness to pay for large ticket items goes down. We won’t see anything like 0 percent rates for possibly 100 years.

One interesting outcome: near shoring of production drives local labor wages up for the long, permanent term. Maybe more in India/Mexico than the US, but still significant. And better for all than the past.

[vitorgrs]

That's because the U.S stops Chinese cars.

I'll give example on Brazil. Cars were ridiculous expensive lately. Then BYD came in.

There were rumors of them launching Seagul (they call Dolphin Mini here) for R$ 100k.

Renault had Kwid E-tech for R$ 142k. They had to lower TO R$ 100k. They had to cut 30% out of nowhere because of Chinese competition.

GWM and Chery is also going well here as far I know.

[unsignedint]

I'm curious whether the increasing popularity of SUVs is skewing the average cost upward. There appear to be numerous sedans available in the market priced between the mid-$20,000s and low $30,000s, so the average figure of $48,000 seems somewhat inflated.

[lancesells]

That's a good point. Could also be because of EVs being much higher priced?

[WheatMillington]

US vehicle margins are in steep decline, and competition is fierce. Sorry but your comment is in opposition to reality. Any company who could do what you say, produce good cars cheaply, would be an instant hit.

[lancesells]

I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying but your comment is the one that's not in reality. Yours is a hypothetical since it's not happening, and maybe not possible.