I think there's room in the market for a back to basics car company that takes out all this bs, goes back to crank windows and all that crap and sells new vehicles for an affordable cost with a good warranty.
It would probably crush today.
Edit: I got like 400 responses saying "slate" ok I get it you can stop
It’s kinda the way things go these days. My assumption has been that prices are driven up mostly due to shareholder/capital pressures. You’ll see a new mark come into the market with no-nonsense models at very reasonable prices, often using easy-to-source generic parts, and they gradually increase the prices on the base models over time to catch up with (or pass) everyone else. Happened with the Japanese brands, when civics and Camrys used to be extremely affordable, then we saw a similar progression with the Korean makes. GM famously made the Saturn more expensive and lower quality before ultimately killing the brand altogether. It’s just the same story of squeezing costs and raising prices for stock price gains.
As a subsection to this, my assumption is that it's not that all of the unnecessary features of a car cause the price to go up, it's that shareholders wanted prices to go up, and they're adding all of these features to justify the price increases to consumers.
I know 10 years ago when I was shopping for a car, you could get an aftermarket remote start system installed for less than $200, but if you wanted it included in the car at the dealership it was an extra $3000. Now the remote start is baked into the price of the car, and then locked behind a $20/month subscription.
Add "subscription based amenities" to the list of things I will never, EVER pay for. I will white knuckle an ice cold steering wheel in February out of 100% pure corporate spite
Same, I got 90 days "Free" from Chevy for their app when I bought a car from them back in 2018, but the second that trial period was over I deleted the app from my phone.
Funny thing is that I still got "service" alerts from the app to my email for months after the car got totaled in an accident(I got T-boned by someone running a red light). It was kind of funny getting "low tire pressure" alerts, when the car was missing two tires.
Seems like the Asian makers are always the first to offer premium features at affordable marks, and then the American and Euro makes have to keep adding more features bloat to justify charging higher prices for the same shit Hyundai has
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u/burge4150 10h ago edited 4h ago
I think there's room in the market for a back to basics car company that takes out all this bs, goes back to crank windows and all that crap and sells new vehicles for an affordable cost with a good warranty.
It would probably crush today.
Edit: I got like 400 responses saying "slate" ok I get it you can stop