Why Are Cars so Expensive?
The average car costs $34,077. What's up with that?
There are obvious things that make today’s cars most expensive. Power windows are almost universal now and were rare luxuries in the 1960s. Government regulations mean that each new car now has to carry pollution control and safety equipment that only Ralph Nader, in his most delirious moments, dreamt of a half century ago. And thanks to advances in engineering things like crush zones, today’s cars will crash more predictably and safely than anything from way-back when. Throw in navigations systems, camera systems, effective air conditioning, and big glass sunroofs, and today’s cars are thick with features.
But the reason why today’s cars are carrying all those plucks and flourishes is because that’s what today’s buyers want. It’s nice to imagine driving a ’66 Chevelle every day, but if you had to sit in those shapeless seats, roll up the windows manually, smell the fumes pouring off the fuel leak that passed for a carburetor, and try and deal with the hazy steering and crap brakes, it would be intolerable by today’s standards. Or at least by today’s standards if they’ve been unpolluted by five decades of nostalgia.
Back in 1966 cars were financed for one, two or maybe three years. And by the time a buyer was finished paying it off the car was often used up and ready to be junked. Today at the end of seven years of payments, a modern car may show more than 100,000 miles on the odometer but capable of running another 200,000.
The reason why today’s cars are so expensive is that they’re good enough that people will strain and strive to pay for them..
(TheDrive.com)
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