That last one is interesting, but the first argument works just as well for cars like Volkswagen Sharan etc which are also very popular and given all things perhaps cheaper?
I don't know anything about car ownership, but if it's more expensive to buy, but cheaper to operate, how does that conclude to being impractical for the general public? shouldn't things like interior space, handling, durability and craftsmanship determine its practicality?
I'd say the biggest simplification in your analysis is only factoring cost, but not the cars themselves. Again, what do I know, right?
They are, also they are much more comfortable to drive. And they are not the only expensive cars on the road, just the most obvious.
If the theory that people don't like cars en masse had been true then I'd expect car market to look more like, say, insurance market, which people are actually forced to buy and as the result most of the insurance advertisement is about the lowest price.
Oh certainly, there's plenty of useless differentiators between brands, but it takes little convincing to want a car as a concept. People who don't want cars generally do so because of environmental concerns, not because they don't see a value in comfortably and quickly moving around over long distances, protected from the elements and with the ability to also transport other people or lots of goods.
A. the people who already have a car and want a 2nd for trips to the grocery store,
B. the people who only have a scooter and want to upgrade to something a little safer and weather-friendly,
C. the people who were taking public transportation, but due to the low cost, can now afford this car.
D. teenage students to drive themselves to school....
It seems to me that the low price point may enable a large volume of sales, but for the most part, it will put more vehicles on the roads by pulling people out of public transport and off of scooters.
1 - nothing compares to a brand new car. The smell, the cleanliness. No one other then to move it from the factory to the dealer has driven it.
2 - cars that have a strong aftermarket (currently driving a Ford Mustang) - I like to modify them / work on them. Anything to fancy or complex to modify (my Acura RDX) I lease and just leave it be.
3 - Volvo's new lease program interests me - a new car every 2 years just like a phone. I've never really liked the style of Volvo but I can overlook that if the terms look good (and they do to me)
So while I'll take an Uber or Lyft if we're going out for the night and might drink to much, I'll probably always buy or lease a car. I'm a car guy and enjoy taking care of my cars (cleaning / detailing) so buying / leasing is still worth it to me.
This is in Western NY where we have some metro rail / bus system but not as strong as say NYC.
And its a great model for people who want a known payment of $x and don't want to take on the risk/reward of deprecation, maintenance, resale, etc.
Unlike with say housing, which sits on land which appreciates in value at a rate and has a high cost of moving (monetary and personal), a typical car for the majority of people is a means to an end which just sits their and deprecates. The cost of changing to a new car is a few minutes reprogramming the radio and seats.
Ultimately what most people want is transportation which costs a reliable x¢ per mile at a given level of convienience, reliability and comfort.
Cars are hardly a winner takes all business or one with little competition - there's at least a dozen major manufacturers.
I think your argument is wrongheaded. People want cars to get them from A to B, that is all. Some people pay more for bigger cars because they have families, want presteige etc. Modular cars is so far down the list of things that people want/need.
Even software is often hard to make modular, things in the physical world... even harder.
Ya, your point is well made. I think where I would disagree is that cars have always been about identity. Nobody (or very few, at least) people buy a Cayenne because it's fast or performs well. People buy it because they think it says something about who they are. The fact that it's highly performant is just how you rationalize the price to the consumer.
Cars can get away with this because they are so well wrapped up with the presentation and identity of their owners/drivers. To some extent, this is true of phones. But I guess I just don't think it's nearly as much the case as it is with cars. Somewhat ironically, this is because an iPhone is not expensive enough to really say much about the wealth of its owner. At least - not in the way that a car does.
Admittedly, that might be slightly hold less true in developing economies, where the ownership of an iPhone really is something only the (relatively) wealthy can attain. But in that case, their rate of expansion is determined by the rate at which people rise out of poverty. Which I don't think is fast enough to outpace the declining upgrade rates.
This applies to all the vehicles. Most of the people own cars that they actually need, and 95% of the time, their needs would be satisfied with much smaller, simpler and cheaper cars.
It's time for us to find a new source of analogies. Why is it always cars?
Regardless, cars increasingly feature the same sort of profit maximising nonsense: subscription-based services, problems that can only be solved by authorised dealerships, systems that can disable the car remotely, planned obsolescence etc.
There is an equivalent demand for Just A Car from people who don't want to fall into this trap.
People don't own cars because they are cheaper. They own them for flexibility - which is why SUVs outsell compacts 10:1 despite worse gas mileage and higher prices. Competing solely on cost is a losing battle and has been since GM overtook ford in the '30s by offering style over pure function.
Cars are fashion, and convenience. Even if an uber was cheaper I wouldn't wait 5 minutes for one outside a store.
I agree with your points, except I don't agree with 'irrationally resisted'. If we take it at face value that someone does something (ie, own their own car) with clear alternatives available (ie, using shared cars) the behaviour is rational. It mightn't seem right on a cost-per-mile basis, but then it just shows that people place value in other things above and beyond cost-per-mile.
Wanting to own your own car even though it is more expensive than the alternatives is no different to wanting to buy designer clothes at 10 times the price of wal-mart offerings. You might call them irrational, but clearly the person making the free choice finds value in the proposition, thereby, as far as they are concerned, it is rational. In fact, we hear people rationalising it all the time.
There are many reasons, besides lower cost, why people buy particular cars. Also, are you sure you aren't being confusing with how you're using "impractical"?
Nobody that wants to drive / needs to drive needs to buy a brand new car per-se. For 5K and up you can get a perfectly serviceable car that has more life left in it than a brand new car from the past and that will pass emissions tests for various environmental zones. My daily driver is 25 years old and I can drive it anywhere. I've owned quite a few vehicles, some new, some old and in spite of the cars sticker price being lower in the 70's and 80's I was very far removed from being able to buy a new vehicle when I got my license first (in '86 or so). You are constructing a whole pile of arguments that have a poor or even no foundation and I'm saying that as a EU driver who could afford a brand new car now but that's mostly because of my increase in income. New car ownership historically wasn't a thing that 'the poor' engaged in and with prices being roughly steady at 1 years worth of income it's clear that you either need to borrow money or save a lot of money to buy a brand new car, unless your boss is friendly enough to provide you with a brand new lease vehicle (which in software circles isn't rare at all).
If you evaluate the cheap cars from the past (say, 1986: Mini, 2CV to a lesser extent the 2CV and really cheap options such as Yugo, Zastava and the Fiat Panda of the day) you'll find that they were very slow and underpowered, consumed quite a bit of fuel, were super dangerous to drive (both the Mini and the 2CV were essentially driving coffins, I should know, I've had both) and were comparatively high maintenance. They were also about 10K guilders at the time, which today would be approximately 11500 euros give or take. That's order of magnitude equivalent but your 15K car today is much safer, sips fuel in comparison and will go three times as far between service intervals.
Car ownership right now is very easy, new car ownership is harder, but it always was, and if you want to compare apples-to-apples you need to compare much higher class vehicles from the 80's with the present low end because the low end from back then has simply disappeared: nobody would buy a 1 star NCAP vehicle even if it was cheap and available, the market simply isn't there anymore. Maybe you're the exception but if that's so then I'm sure you can find a nicely restored 1980's mini for that kind of money. But please don't, they're more dangerous than they even were back then because a modern 'cheap' vehicle will drive right through a 1986 Mini in an accident.
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