They want everyone to, but they also know that the cost of cars, it's not realistic for that to happen. The only way even people on the upper middle class can afford to be buying or leasing cars every three years is because at the end of those three years the car still has a lot of value left to sell on to someone who is more middle class. And that middle class person will likely sell it again to someone who is a little bit lower down and at about 10 to 12 years it finally reaches someone who is poor.
The only way someone could buy a car more often is if they became a lot cheaper. That would mean doing away with a lot of the luxury parts of the car that are where the profit is.
They’re working on it. I follow a mechanic on YouTube who has shared dozens of examples of manufacturers seemingly intentionally shipping deeply flawed components for seemingly no reason other than to push the average lifespan of a vehicle back downwards from the high levels we’d reached by about 2012. Cars are being junked with less than 100k miles because the original parts fail, replacement parts are hard to get, and now manufacturers are making it so you need an expensive piece of software which they completely control to program a new part to the car, without which, it’s a brick. So essentially they can drop support for a car from that software, and make it near-impossible to replace those parts even if someone reverse-engineers aftermarket parts.
This isn't new. Automakers have always wanted to build to price and to survive the warranty period. Only competition works against it. Japanese makers competed on affordability and reliability from the 1970s through the 2010s or so, but now they've adopted the same compromises and are skating on their reputations. Honda for example is no longer affordable, nor as reliable or well made as they used to be, though everyone still thinks they are. Even Mercedes, once the king of overbuilt cars, are now just overpriced tin and plastic like any other car.
Hopefully some makers will start competing on affordability and maintainability again. Slate might be one.
I’m sure they would, but they also know their new car prices would be unsustainable if you couldn’t sell your old car… and that means everyone in the second hand car market is running stale infotainment stacks
Source? They’re cheaper, but I’ve seen zero proof they are less long-lasting than our cars. If anything, those who have tried them say they’re better cars, including the Ford CEO, who imported one and can’t say enough good things about it.
Believe me, I am a Chinese who follows the Chinese car market quite closely.
Since the endless price war started in 2023, many cars in the tens-of-thousands to low-hundreds-of-thousands RMB range (affordable by most people) have had serious quality problems because of price cuts, including joint-venture cars (foreign-brand cars produced in Chinese factories).
This is the world’s largest car market, where the best-selling ICE car last month could only rank 17th overall. It is also a market where you can buy an Accord for under $20,000, and a Corolla for a little over $11,000. And both are going to be discontinued because it is no longer competitive and sells badly.
When the price goes up, the car itself is usually much better. At least it is not like earlier cheap BYDs, which could start rusting everywhere after just one year.
But the very short development and production cycle is another big problem. In this fiercely competitive market, sometimes it takes less than half a year from the birth of a car brand to a model launch. Recent examples are Huawei GT7.
Because new cars are getting better so quickly, many cars cannot keep sales for more than six months. Some are discontinued in less than a year, like Han L and Tang L. Some cars even get three updates in one year, like Zeekr 001, just to keep up with new cars.
This obviously creates maintenance and after-sales problems.
By comparison, Xiaomi, which changes generation every two years, is already one of the most traditional and conservative ones. This is also the car Ford’s CEO “imported one and can’t say enough good things about it”. I have driven it too, haha.
The only way someone could buy a car more often is if they became a lot cheaper. That would mean doing away with a lot of the luxury parts of the car that are where the profit is.