People say this, and I wish they could get one if they want it, but the sales figures don’t back it up. People buying new cars weren’t buying the base trims with no frills. The XLT outsells the XL on the F150, the EX-L outsells the LX on the CR-V. Even the Versa, which used to be the cheapest car, they started making fewer S trims because people didn’t buy them.
That's because the cheapest trims are still way too fucking expensive. If I'm gonna pay $35k for a car, I might as well pay $39k to get the extra bits. But I only want to spend $20k on a car
Mitsubishi mirage MSRP was under $15k until 2023 and under $20k until they stopped making them in 2025.
Hyundai accent MSRP was under $15k till 2020 and under $17k till they stopped making them in 2022.
Hyundai venue MSRP is currently $20,550. Kia K4 $22,290
In very recent history cheap affordable cars existed, but sales numbers were abysmal bc people didn't actually want them despite actually being really good on gas and fairly reliable, the mirage had a combined mpg of 39 and the accent 36mpg combined, certainly not modern hybrid mpg but they weren't hybrids just cheap "small" cars.
But even today theres dozens of options under $30k let alone $35k
I feel like too many people are watching episodes of The Price is Right from the 80s and thinking a brand new tricked out car that cost $8-9k should be like $18k because they don't actually understand how severe inflation has been, especially over the past decade.
I gave actual MSRPs? Those are recent and the actual numbers....
And those aren't even that small or low powered. A 2 door commuter at 1500lb curb weight and 50hp could easily cost under $15k but people wouldn't buy it bc for some reason every car has got to be a big 4 door hatchback.
It's a cultural thing, we need to get back to being ok with small low power cars as commuters/grocery getters. If you need a big van/SUV bc you have a large family or you want a sports car or something then fine, but the obsession with commuter cars being massive is just silly.
Like I'd absolutely buy a 0.5L(500cc) 40hp engine ultra compact 2 door, no back seats, commuter car if they sold one, but no one does. Shit like that needs to exist.
Believe it or not I was agreeing with you. I specifically mentioned tricked out (read: premium options) cars and only one of your examples made it to 2026 by your own admission.
Edit:
Like I'd absolutely buy a 0.5L(500cc) 40hp engine ultra compact 2 door, no back seats, commuter car if they sold one, but no one does. Shit like that needs to exist.
Do Smart Cars not exist where you are? I know they're a Euro staple but they've been a thing in North America for a good 20+ years.
The slowest car available in the US was the mirage but they stopped selling it. It was 1.2L 78hp 3 cylinder 2100lb curb weight.
Now the slowest car on the market is a Nissan kicks with 10.4s 0-60 and 141hp 2L 4-cylinder but it's slow bc the 3,000+ lb curb weight and taller/larger profile. The lowest power car available is the Hyundai venue at 121hp 1.6L 4 cylinder 2700lb curb weight and 0-60 of 9.6s.
It's insane to me that these are the smallest/lowest power cars that are available at all here.
Uhhh is it really so hard to understand that a smaller engine is cheaper. And that a lighter smaller car can still be quick with a really low power engine since speed is directly proportional to weight and frontal area....
I want to know who's making a smart car with over 120hp other than EV smart cars. They don't exist. Or if they do they aren't cheap
Uhhh is it really so hard to understand that a smaller engine is cheaper.
Uhhh is it really so hard to understand that the US is larger than the entirety of the EU? Me driving 8 hours/500 miles one way across multiple states to attend an internet friend's wedding is nothing for an American.
I’ve never seen a smart car in the US, I saw them everywhere in Europe though. If you bought a smart car here everyone would make fun of you, even prius owners
I've seen plenty of Smart Cars in the states; mostly in the NY/NJ region in the mid 00s. I've still seen plenty in the Raleigh area over many of the past 20 years.
Its cause in America most people finance their cars so they rather buy a car thats 10k more but only ends up costing like $100 more per month for a better car, I work in a phone store and see people do the same thing everyday when buying the newest iPhone
Omg people are so bad with phones, I can't tell you how many people I know who are genuinely convinced their phone is free bc they get a new free one every 2 years or something with their plan.
Meanwhile they spend $60-100/mo/person and unlimited plans without the free phone bs are as cheap as $30/mo.
Like no your phone wasn't free you paid $40/mo extra every month for 2 years and traded in the old too. So after trade in it was $960.
Going on 3 years with my $400 Motorola thinkphone that performs in every way identical to a new flagship smartphone.
Your right, those free phone contracts is how those big phone companies trap you, whats funny is a 4 year old iphone basicly does 90% of what the new iphone does
Both the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla start at under $25k MSRP. Those are probably the best options for most. There's cheaper options from Hyundai, Kia, and Nissan also. As low as $22k MSRP. The venue, K4, kicks, Sentra, Elantra.
There's also even hybrids using Toyotas insanely reliable power split eCVT transmission, the Corolla hybrid at $25,175 and Prius at $28,755. The latter of which is a decent sized hatchback that gets 57mpg and this newest generation of Prius is actually quite powerful at 194hp so it's definitely not the slug the Prius is often considered.
Also Incase your not familiar with that eCVT from Toyota it is entirely different from belted cvts that literally everyone else uses. There's no belts anywhere and it chooses gear ratio by changing how two electric motors spin. It's one of the simplest, most reliable, and most efficient transmissions ever made
Wow, I'd actually never heard of an eCVT before..Ihave been car free for a couple years now but will probably be in the market next summer. Sounds more promising than I would've expected.
I highly recommend looking into a car with an eCVT. It's basically all the benefits of a cvt(no shifting meaning amazing efficiency and power) but it is actually simpler than a cvt, automatic, and even simpler than a manual.
Works by taking a planetary gear set and the gas engine spins the planet carrier, an electric motor(Toyota calls mg1) spins the sun gear, and a seperate electric motor(Toyota calls mg2) spins the ring gear which drives the driveshaft.
You change the speed at which mg1 spins to change the speed at which the engine spins in relation to the road speed/mg2 speed.
Also it allows you to entirely remove the alternator and starter since those jobs are done by either mg1 or mg2.
But this also means it's only possible to have a eCVT in a hybrid.
Toyota also licenses the tech out, the Ford Maverick hybrid for example uses Toyotas eCVT although it's a licensing agreement so Ford builds it.
Also all Toyota hybrids use eCVT including the Corolla hybrid for around $25k
The mirage is rough I had one as a rental. Great gas mileage. But it felt unsafe and like I was driving a go kart. If you have any real driving outside of a commute I would not use that thing.
We have 6 children. Three of them drive. We have two SUVs that are capable of 6 comfortably. But we need the trunk space many times for school sports and weekend getaways, so I’m looking at a larger vehicle.
For a car produced in the US thats not even gong to make the company money. You want something that doesnt exist.
Nissan dropped the only car that was under 20k MSRP in the US because they only sold between 15-20k of them a year. And it made them basically no profit.
The gently-used market is where you're shopping if thats your price point.
lol, I think this rational is so funny. People in modern day America believe they would have never been okay with slavery if they lived in the early 1800s, but they go ahead and buy products made from slave labor in 2026.
There’s not much I can do to completely avoid using products made from slave labor, but I do not advocate for adding more products that will increase the number of people being exploited for their labor. Isn’t this the same argument the left uses for guns? Even if it saves one life?
There's plenty that used to exist under 20k MSRP very recently. But people don't buy them bc they want big huge powerful cars.
Look at the mirage for example, it was always under $20k MSRP and sold up until last year. Or the accent. Or K4
And those aren't even small cars really. A 2 door commuter weighing sub 2000lb with 50-75hp would be insanely easy to turn a profit on at $20k, heck even $15k they'd be able to turn a profit.
But people literally refuse to buy those small low power cars while also crying that cars are too expensive.
Cheap low power small cars also tend to be quite reliable due to the lower power not stressing the trans or anything else as hard. And they are very good on gas.
And I'm not saying everyone should own a car like that. But if you have multiple cars at your household there's almost never a reason that you must have more than 1 large car. Have your crossover or SUV or van but then it's 100% on you if you think cars are all 35k+ bc you just ignore cheap compacts(which are still easy to find new $20k-$25k)
Not really. Toyota can sell new cars for $10k-$15k overseas. Those cars do not meet American crash or emissions regulations, but $5k-$7k more per unit should fix that easily
If that globalized car cannot be purchased because no one in that regional market can afford its sale price, then the manufacturer isn't saving money at all.
If consumers in Market A have shown through market studies and past experience that they will continue buying cars even if the price goes up, then the profit margins from selling at that higher price in Market A can help cover the losses taken from selling at a lower price that is affordable for Market B.
Nah just look at how budget cars used to be. Super low power, like 50-75hp, two door, so narrow you don't even get a third seat in the back at all, low to the ground, 15in or smaller wheels, etc.
The problem now is the obsession with everything having to be a big huge vehicle. Like the car you only use to commute to work and get groceries for some reason needs to be a 4 door hatchback.
99.9% of People won't even consider compact 2 doors anymore.
A company could easily make a 50hp, 1500lb, 2 door commuter, and produce it with zero slave labor while still making a good profit at $15,000 MSRP. But no one would buy it.
That’s exactly the point. The “bare bones” of a car are expensive; the “frills” are relatively cheap. I think much of the “I want no-frills cars again” movement comes from overestimating how much prices would come down. (And no, this isn’t driven by companies inflating the prices of base models; on the contrary margin tends to be higher on more expensive trims.)
You can get a brand new Venue for $20,000, a Trax for not much more. And that’s just MSRP. But that’s my point exactly. Most car buyers think the same thing you just described. “I might as well pay a little more and get the extra bits”
A car this cheap needs to be dead reliable, and do absolutely nothing else. Reliability is the only thing that matters in this price bracket, because for $20k I can get a lightly used Toyota Camry
Chevy Cruze scored between 80 and 87 its entire run so I really don’t trust jd power ratings. Hell even the sonic was like an 80 and that thing was hot dogshit especially the turbo models. Just look at the sonic subreddit and see how common it is for people to have 3-4 gallons of coolant in their car for how much that thing would over heat and eat coolant.
If you cannot trust scores then where amdo you get the idea the car is unreliable? How would one determine the overall reliability of a platform if you cannot use the very scores used to judge such a thing lmfao
Also the comment I replied to cited reliability ratings were poor when they aren't, so just because they're not the most reliable source of information doesn't mean the person who left this comment isn't just straight up lying lmfao
JD Power ratings are secondary to the market research they provide to their primary clients - car manufacturers. I’m sure it’s a completely reliable and not at all compromised score when they’re basically rating their customers products.
What are the User scores then?? Edmunds and Cars.com both give the Trax a good rating with its worst attribute being it's acceleration but nothing in terms of its reliability
JD power is well known to be a nonsense rating/award company.
They literally just twist the results or redo the "studies" until it gets what their clients pay them for. They get hired by companies for those ratings and awards, especially the awards which aren't given without paying them.
Me personally? The nearest Hyundai dealer from me has an SE Venue sitting on the lot, according to their site, yeah. But that probably varies by market.
This. I bought my first new car a couple months ago. (Been driving an old beat up 08 Ford Ranger for 8+ years.) Got a SE trimToyota Camry 2026 for 36k otd. The LE that is the base model was 3K cheaper. And honestly I didn't care too much about the extra bells and whistles. What made my decision was the color. SE was all blacked out and looked sleek af. The LE was white and I didn't want another white vehicle. Already spending over 30k, might as well add another 3k to the price and get the car that i think looks better and has some nice extra features.
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u/freetotebag 9h ago
People say this, and I wish they could get one if they want it, but the sales figures don’t back it up. People buying new cars weren’t buying the base trims with no frills. The XLT outsells the XL on the F150, the EX-L outsells the LX on the CR-V. Even the Versa, which used to be the cheapest car, they started making fewer S trims because people didn’t buy them.