Last month a friend was looking to buy a minivan (3 kids ages 1-3). The dealers either didn't have inventory or were charging $8-10K over MSRP. I suggested he try Cartelligent. They found him a car within 3 days at <$2K over MSRP. It was delivered from a dealer 130 miles away.

Unbelievable. I take it this was for a gas car?

Yes. I think he ended up with a Honda Odyssey.

Good, it's been a while I wanted to get my hand on someone who actually want to buy such big cars. What is it with the trend for huge cars? Why do people have to negate EVs energy efficiency story pushing around much more weight than (what to used to be) a normal sized car. Haven't you heard of climate change? At least buy an Aptera for chrissake. Well anyways, we're doomed of we keep on the car lifestyle.

RAV 4 is not a big car.

It's bigger than most cars you'd find in most of the world. Where's your threshold for "big"?

Most cars in the US are bigger than most cars you'd find in most of the world.

Exactly, and this is related to the question "What is it with the trend for huge cars?", as this trend has largely been an American one.

It's only 5 cm wider and longer than a Honda Civic. It's higher, of course, since it's a "compact crossover", but not as high as Suzuki Jimny, for example.

I mean, in this context I don't think when the word "big" was used it was referring to the surface area from a bird's eye view.

There's many different ways you could think of something as being "big", but in this context I believe either volume, mass or even drag coefficient is what is most relevant to the thread.

Fiat 500L: Cx ~ 0.36, weight ~ 1300 kg

RAV4: Cx ~ 0.32, weight ~ 1700 kg

Ford F-150: Cx ~ 0.56, weight: 1900-2500 kg

It's a small car for Americans, and a medium-sized car for Europeans.

It's now the size of a 1st and 2nd generation 4Runner.

> What is it with the trend for huge cars

I need to move next year because the city I live in (San Jose) is utterly unaffordable. Turns out there's a lot of things movers won't take for you including my vaste plant collection. I remember driving with all of my plants, valuables, and dog to San Jose. I had zero space left, yet now I have a long-term partner so I'll need more space for that move.

Second, road trips. I go to a festival every year that's in the boondocks in Michigan. Getting there is no simple task so having a car like the Rav 4 Hybrid that gets excellent mileage and can get me across country~ish terrain is quite nice.

> Why do people have to negate EVs energy efficiency story pushing around much more weight than (what to used to be) a normal sized car.

The Rav4 Hybrid is... a hybrid. I don't know what you're on about. If you're asking why I didn't get a plugin EV it's because I need to haul stuff and EVs perform terribly at this task.

Even if they did exist in a functional capacity I'd be hard pressed to find a place where I can quickly charge it. The housing crisis out here makes it difficult for me to buy a home, road trips would be a lot more inconvenient (I like to go to festivals, so they're long road trips.)

Last but not least is cost. The Ford Lightning looked attractive to me, but then I found out as soon as you haul anything the battery basically pits.

> Haven't you heard of climate change?

Weird question, but yes. I used to be an executive at a water startup.

> At least buy an Aptera for chrissak

This is it? https://aptera.us/ That would not solve my problem. Looks like they're reservation only. Looks like they're also having trouble sourcing parts, like Toyota: https://aptera.us/community/discussion/realistic-delivery-ti...

Personally, this reply wreaks of classism and doomerism. I don't know why this kind of take is so popular on HackerNews but I think y'all really need to think about the image you're selling to the rest of this forum and furthermore the image you're selling to people when you open your mouth and speak so shittily to people. This is especially true when you don't even commit one iota of your brainpiece to understanding my usecase before loudly complaining mixed with misplaced outrage and shaming.

Last edit: You have inspired me to start working on a website to combat doomerism and encourage people to seek help.

Just a heads up, cash isn’t king anymore when buying a car. The dealers make considerable money from the finance portion of the transaction.

I’ve been wondering if you could tell the dealer that you’d like to finance and then just pay the loan off in the short term, whether it be immediately or in a matter of months, or if there are normally provisions in car loans that prevent that?

I’ve done this. They asked me to leave the loan outstanding for two months and I ran the numbers on the interest that would accrue. They agreed to deduct that amount (several hundred dollars) from the purchase price.

Of course, this was pre-supply chain crunch, so now you’d probably be best off not saying you’d prepay and just doing it ASAP

Prepayment penalties are rare outside of subprime/pay-and-go loans. When I worked at Ford Credit the max dealer markup on financing was 2%, and the dealer got their commission on the rate markup up front. Taking a crappy interest rate and prepaying is a sound negotiation tactic because it is the financing company that takes the hit.

Usually not. I've once financed a car just to get an additional rebate (few extra grands to finance through manufacturer) and paid it off next month.

Read the contract, mine didn't have it though (2020).

Thanks for the heads up and the subsequent discussion.