QOTD: What Is The New-Car Pricing Breaking Point?
New-car pricing keeps going up -- at what point will all but the wealthiest people be priced out of the market? Will that even happen?
New-car pricing keeps going up -- at what point will all but the wealthiest people be priced out of the market? Will that even happen?
Back during my school days, we were taught that businesses won't set prices too high so as not to alienate customers. But clearly automakers are fine with setting MSRPs at a high level -- people are still buying, apparently. Of course, cars are a big-ticket item that can be financed, so games can be played with loans to get people into vehicles that they might not otherwise afford. And leasing exists, and so on and so forth.
I also understand automakers are being squeezed on their end, due to tariffs and production costs, et cetera. I am also vastly oversimplifying this for the sake of brevity.
Anyway, new-car prices are going up, and when that happens, used-car prices follow. At what point, if ever, will the market adjust so that us white-collar wage slaves can actually afford a new ride? Or is a new car now a luxury reserved for the C-suite?
Sound off below.
[Image: Kenishirotie/Shutterstock.com]
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