Again, your comparisons just totally ignore the reality of the US market. You might as well say "I wish car companies would be willing to sell all their vehicles at a loss."

To be clear, I wish it were different. I owned a 2015 Volt, and I loved (still love) that car, and I think it would be the perfect vehicle for most people. I get 35-40 miles of electric range, which for me means a round trip to work plus 1 "errand" trip. The benefits were I never had to worry about range anxiety (I'd frequently use all of 0.1 miles of gas if I went over electric range during the day), I never needed to special charger at home (it would charge overnight on a normal US outlet), and for long trips I didn't have to worry at all about "charger anxiety" because it would just switch over to gas.

And what happened? The Volt was always a money loser for GM, despite most owners loving the car. It was a huge lesson to me that (a) marketing is hugely important in the car industry, and (b) most people's car purchases are basically emotional decisions. It doesn't matter how "practical" your car is, many people essentially see their car as an extension of their identity.

Again, I wish it weren't this way in the US, but pretending it's not doesn't do anyone any good.

I am in the US market. I was an active car buyer before I decided against it,

I and my peers (30 and younger) just aren't buying new or even used cars due to financial reasons, let alone EVs.

The capital outlay on a new car, let alone an EV is too high when factoring incomes, and alternatives.

And these are peers of mine in VC, Finance, Engineering Management, L7+ engineers. For our friends who are doing average jobs the affordability crisis is even worse.

Exactly. Your argument boils down to "I'm the worst demographic for a car company, but I want them to make money-losing vehicles for me."

We are all buyers in the top 1-5% of Incomes in the US.

If it is increasingly unaffordable for high earners like us, then there is something fundamentally wrong.

And let's be honest, a sub-35k EV is a solved problem. BYD and similar companies sells in Australia, NZ, Central Europe, and Japan at a similar price point.

I agree that it would be nice to have sub 35k cars but I’m surprised people in the fields and levels you mentioned have to put off buying a car for financial reasons. When I first started working more than a decade ago I was making 60K and didn’t think twice about buying a 25K car. Multiply the numbers by 2 to adjust for inflation now and it should be similar.

> I’m surprised people in the fields and levels you mentioned have to put off buying a car for financial reasons

The monthly cost reaches $1k a month in 2023 (parking+interest+insurance).

We all can afford it, but the question is why spend $12k a year on transportation when Caltrain+BART+Muni+VTA and Uber come out for less.

> buying a 25K

The average new car in 2023 is $48k, and the average used is $26k. With used you end up paying more in insurance and get worse financing.

Ah yeah if you live in a big city served by public transportation, having a car becomes a luxury. I’m a suburb/rural guy so having a car is more of a necessity, but housing is cheaper and parking is free so the costs cancel out somewhat.

Yep.

Most of those high earning jobs are in the city and suburban areas, which makes car ownership a luxury.

Though, even in rural areas car ownership costs have become heavily unaffordable, now that average rent prices nationally are around $1400/mo compared to $700/mo a decade ago [0], while median salary in 2023 is at $4,000/mo (pre-tax)

[0] - https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/histtab11.xlsx

And yet sales volumes for the past several years have been near record levels. Regardless of incomes, consumers are buying those expensive vehicles. So, why would manufacturers waste resources on building cheaper models if they don't have to?

BYD in Japan? November figure for all BYD was 166. In contrast, Toyota sold about 100 cars short of 17k Yaris, in just Japan in that name and the month alone. Sub 35k is as solved as any cost of market entry problems are.

If you're really a 1-5% earner and cars seem unaffordable, you're really overspending elsewhere.

Giving big "throwaway" energy.

It does. And it's not just GP. Most praised EVs are sold at loss. Most criticized are sold at profit. Everyone can see winds changing on Tesla, guess what happened to them few quarters back.

There are many people in this country that will buy a 2 year old used car for just a few thousand under the new price because the majority of their lives they’ve been told buying new is a waste of money. My friend’s in-laws are like that and it drives him batty.

> it drives him batty.

Similar boat. My parents and I buy new, but then we keep using the car for 10-15 years.

It doesn't make sense financially to buy a used car and then upgrade to another used car in 4-5 years.

I drive a nice Mercedes sedan with AWD and a v6 engine, and I bought it with cash, used. Insurance is cheaper. With WFH I drive to meetings and for travel. It will last me ten more years. Last one I had got t-boned at an intersection with 230k miles on it. It's quiet, comfortable, and safe. The infotainment is laughably bad, so I have bluetooth on the aux input and nav and audio is from my phone. I hope not to buy another car until I can get a an under $30k EV that is equivalent in function and longevity. Putting more than that into a car feels to me like setting money on fire.