This is a great example of how factually incorrect narratives -
so long as they align with a preferred agenda (which is that things
are not affordable any more) - it gets upvoted.
Reality check:
- In 2025, there are 12 new car models available under $25,000
- In 2005, there were around 10 new models under $15,000 (25k adjusted by inflation)
So the premise that “cars used to be much more affordable” is not true. This article is full of misleading or outdated information that distorts the real trend.
Average new car price is very misleading. When you buy a car, they don't charge you the average, they charge you what the specific car you're buying costs. If there are a dozen cheap car options for sale, it is irrelevant to me that there are also some more expensive options for sale.
2005 accord is 5 inchers longer, a couple inches wider and has a longer wheelbase. This results in larger interior space and trunk space. While cars are in fact getting bigger and heavier, in this case it's not as egregious.
you also could compare internal dimensions between 3: 2005 accord vs 2025 civic vs 2025 accord, I kinda believe 2025 civic will be closer to 2005 accord.
But I mostly referred on class in general: 2005 accord was basic appliance economy car, while 2025 accord has many more accura like luxury features besides drivetrain.
Yep, model inflation. I have an early 2000s Accord and it's smaller than most Civics I see on the road, and with fewer features than a base model Civic.
For under 47k, (off the top of my head) you can buy a Subaru BRZ, Toyota gr86, Toyota gr Corolla, Honda Civic type r, Subaru WRX, VW gti... None of those are budget conscious family cars so something is off with that average car price you quoted.
You can buy a Nissan versa for under 18k today. https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/cars/versa-sedan/specs-tr... .
You need car interest rates to understand actual "car affordability" at any particular time. ZIRP era was far cheaper than right now where most new cars are 6% for highly qualified buyers (800+ credit rating)
Also, cars today last longer, have more features for your dollar, and are significantly safer and in many cases (i.e. toyota small cars like the corolla) can get 50+ mpg without the anemic and underpowered engines of the past.
> - In 2005, there were around 10 new models under $15,000 (25k adjusted by inflation)
You'll need to provide hard evidence for this. I was pretty young in 2005 but $15.000 would get you a decent car (though not a pickup). That being said, it is possible we have more models now under 25.000 but what $15/25k used to buy you (segment wise) has downgraded.
$15k would buy you a base-trim 2005 Corolla with an automatic or one level up with a manual.
In 2025, you can buy the LE or SE trim Corolla for under $25k, either of which are vastly better cars than the 2005 in any dimension you wish to measure. Safety, technology, comfort, performance. All improved.
You are 100% correct. I was a senior in college and my beater died. I went to the Mazda dealer and talked them down to $13k on a brand new Mazda3. My payment was like $280.
Now inflation adjusted that is supposedly just shy of $22k. But it’s not the full story. That car was actually very nice for the time and to get an equivalently nice car today it’s not going to be a bare bones Nissan Versa or something like that.
To share an anecdote on the more recent side of the spectrum, I bought a new 2025 Toyota Corolla LE two months ago. It's probably the cheapest vehicle Toyota makes. My cost before tax and title (not sure if that should be included or not) was $23k. It's a pretty great car. Highway averages like 45-50 MPH (25-35 city), it's comfortable, has Car Play, and everything else you'd expect in a car now.
I'll say that the two things I'm used to having in a car that this one doesn't (since it's such a base trim) is automatic seat adjustment (not a big deal, I kind of prefer it since the automatic seats on my last vehicle died) and no remote start.
All that to say that I think that inflation adjusted measure can still get you a fine car. As for the argument about income vs inflation in GP, I have no idea.
I think the problem here is that we are comparing against price inflation (not salary inflation). If every company increased its prices, then that's the inflation. Customers will feel ripped off if their salaries didn't at least match inflation.
In other words, if your salary in 2005 was $50k when Mazda was $13k; then your salary should be $82k for a $22k Mazda3 to be the same price. Currently, a Mazda3 starts at $24k and will probably run at $26-27k: https://www.mazdausa.com/vehicles/mazda3-sedan
> All that to say that I think that inflation adjusted measure can still get you a fine car. As for the argument about income vs inflation in GP, I have no idea.
Kind of. But my understanding is that most salaries haven't caught up to inflation especially in the last few years when the US economy had the worst inflation.
Salary inflation is much trickier to measure because it is confounded by years of experience increasing, getting promotions, etc. The distribution of the working population by seniority also changes over time so it's not self-correcting across the distribution. Assuming you have a good way of measuring it, (salary inflation/price inflation) would be an interesting Financial Quality of Life measure.
You can use real median household income [0] and real median personal income [1] to gauge potential salary inflation (real meaning CPI adjusted).
The median American household and American has gotten significantly richer than in 2005, but in the 2020-23 period, income growth slowed due to the pandemic and the subsequent slow restart of the economy.
The last time we saw similar retractions were during recessions like the 1990-93 recession, the Dot Com Bust, and the Great Recession. Turns out the "vibe check" in the early 2020s were right.
Tl;dr - the median American feels poorer in the early 2020s than they did in 2019, but they have much more earning power than they ever did before 2018. I would not be surprised if this played an outsized role in voter dynamics in the 2024 election
Hence why I also provided personal income, but both data points show a significant correlation between dual-income households since the 1980s, so that is a moot point.
Also, as at this point 1980 is 45 years ago - almost 2 generations, almost like using the 1960s as a frame of reference in 2005.
At this point we've been a country of dual earners in a household for 2 generations now. It's best to assume that is the default given the overlap.
The Mazda 3 has gotten nicer too. I test drove one that had a HUD, adaptive cruise control with lane keeping, heated seats and paddle shifters among other features that are standard on all models.
Those are all things that were only available on luxury cars, if at all, in 2005.
In 2025 the base option package would have been a five figure option package in 2005.
>I think the problem here is that we are comparing against price inflation (not salary inflation)
This current period of inflation is caused by the dollar losing its value due to massive over printing by the Federal Reserve. People should feel ripped off, but I think you're directing your anger at the wrong target.
TBF if you go by new-car pricing now, manual has more value than a base-trim automatic. (And the automatic transmissions now are better than the automatics available in 13k cars back then.)
What do you mean by more value? In Europe manual is cheaper than automatic. In USA there are only high-performance vehicles offered with manual. However even then Elantra N is cheaper with manual.
I’m most familiar with Canadian pricing, and since a while, it’s been more common for manuals to be more significantly more expensive than automatic. e.g it’s like $10k extra for a manual Mazda 3 or a Cadillac CT4-V or $15k extra for a manual Mustang. This commonly is because manuals are limited to higher trim levels... but that’s kinda like EVs for some models - even if the trim is upgraded, it’s still $10k more expensive.
But you compare different cars. If you compare the same high performance vehicles (but not luxury) where there are both options - then manual often is the same or cheaper.
For many manual enthusiasts, a Mazda3 GX is effectively the “same car” as a Mazda3 Sport GT, with the significant difference being that the latter has manual transmission.
For me, most of the differences between a GX and a Sport GT, other than the transmission, are about as relevant as the paint colour, so telling me that they’re not comparable is like saying that I can’t compare two cars because the manual version is only available with an expensive quad-coat matte paint job. To me, that fancy paint job isn’t relevant - what’s relevant is that the manual transmission costs $10k more.
That said, we picked up one of the cars on this list for well under $15,000 in 2010. (And it's still going strong! Never needed a major repair.) Which doesn't really mean anything, just throwing out yet another anecdote to highlight that nobody's presented any information that actually supports or contradicts the major premise that cars are getting less affordable. Segmenting your data by picking arbitrary cutoffs (like $25,000) has its own chapter in the classic book How to Lie With Statistics.
I’m just saying that I 100% understand that you think it was “cheaper before” but there is no data to show that. I honestly feel the same.
Toyota Corolla was 13k in 2000: https://www.kbb.com/toyota/corolla/2000 - 25 years ago.
The core of my argument is this: today’s news manipulates perception by playing on emotions, which ultimately distorts the truth.
This article isn’t overly political, which makes it easier for us to debate without resorting to calling each other Nazis or communists. But when it comes to politics, distortion of truth happens all the time.
Bold of you to talk about distortion of truth when you are the main perpetrator of it in this thread.
Your claim of "only 10 models under $15k in 2005" is patently false, based on logic where the "Forbes 30 under 30" list is evidence that only 30 people exist younger than 30.
So yeah I guess your core argument is true, but you demonstrated by perpetuating it...
Please find a car which is missing. I was unable to find a single one.
And I also made the mistake with the list for 2025: there are 20 cars less than 25k in 2025.
See? You found problem with 2005 but you happily ignored that fact that I missed cars from 2025.
Why? Because it fits your world view. And that is how marketing works: you are convinced that cars are getting more expensive and no amount of data will change your view.
And posts on hubspot like this are paid by companies not making sub-$25k cars.
We haven't even started discussing your 2025 list, I'm just criticizing that you used a "top 10" list as a source saying "there were only 10 vehicles that existed meeting this criteria".
Meanwhile, if you look at your other sources, the Pontiac Sunfire link you posted shows that one did MSRP just over $15k, despite it being on your "top 10" list.
You really are in no position to criticize other people for "no amount of data will change your position", when all the data that you have presented so far is some combination of misleading, incorrect, or hallucinated.
Everything that has increased by more than income growth has gotten less affordable. Thankfully it seems to be happening to all the most expensive things housing, vehicles, education, healthcare, etc (/s incase not obvious)
In 2024 Toyota in Thailand introduced a cheap pick-up that is a bit under 15.000 USD when THB is converted to USD. I think it's rather neat - the basic model is /very/ basic, but lots of options to customize.
This doesn't really have anything to do with the US though. Importing that vehicle is not possible for another 24 years and USD$15k goes a lot farther in southeast Asia than it does in the US. For the past half century there has been a plethora of cheap pick-up trucks available in Asia and that has not carried over to the US.
The first 4 or 5 pickups in that infographic is the Toyota Land Cruiser, not the Hilux. Although this infographic is pretty funny, it's not accurate I'm afraid.
I know this has issues. There is a more accurate one out there somewhere with actual year/models, armament specs and the conflict in which the pic was taken but I don't have quick access to it.
Toyota uses a separate platform called IMV [0] in developing countries that doesn't meet safety standards in EU, Canada, Japan, the US, or the UK.
A lot of safety features such as around crumple zones or even airbags (in the case of the Toyota Champ) don't exist in the IMV platform.
Australia allows them (excluding the Champ), but they watered down their car safety standards in order to seal FTAs with ASEAN (2009), China (2015), and India (2022), leading to the last Australian automotive factory shutting down in 2017.
Once you start adding those safety features (and build the associated testing infra), costs end up comparable to those in Central Europe - as can be seen with the domestic and international prices of Western-oriented export models from China (Zeekr X/Volvo XC30) or India (Toyota Hyryder/Toyota Urban Cruiser).
In addition to what the sibling points out, in this case of a light pickup truck the chicken tax also applies which adds 25% tariff: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
Mostly regulatory nonsense. US has very specific requirements that mean cars driven in the US have to be basically specifically designed for the US. Other than that main problem is tariffs.
While I do agree with you, I think you have to account for income as well, and not only the car price (even if adjusted for inflation) to determine affordability.
Pretty sure inflation adjusted median income has increased from 2005 to 2025. But it sure doesn't feel like it. I wonder if other costs such as housing and healthcare have gotten less affordable affecting the real affordability. Inflation adjustments should capture this, but it feels like it doesn't.
Housing, healthcare, childcare, and education have become more expensive. These are the biggest expenses for most people and are necessities. So the percentage of income available for other expenses has definitely decreased. Not sure about real wages though.
In theory, inflation is supposed to capture those increases. The median real wage has gone up about 10-15% from 2005-2025. In theory, it should be more affordable. It doesn't feel that way to me, but maybe there are numbers I'm missing, or the way we measure inflation and apply it to affordability is broken.
Yes, this measure is called "Real Wages" and has been increasing basically since 2013 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q). But as you point out, that measure uses CPI, which doesn't weigh mortgage/rent and healthcare affordability as heavily it would need to match what the average family experiences.
They do not have a source. This happens on HN constantly: someone shits on the article with no basis in reality and no source, and their comment gets voted to the top and dominates the discussion.
After the supply chain crisis which saw used car prices look like new car prices, the used market really never came back to a sane level. I also wonder how many people are in the market for cars old enough to not have all of the telemetry tracking, "everything is computer" touchscreen nonsense which could be having an effect on the supply/demand of that part of the used car market. I recently bought a car specifically with those features in mind.
Issue was every manufacturer slashed production during the pandemic either intentionally or due to parts shortages, so cars built during the pandemic years are abnormally scarce.
Add in that used car loans always have higher interest rates than new car loans, if you're buying with anything other than cash there still isn't that much of a discount on gently used/certified vs new.
You have to really go back a few years or get a relatively high mileage before you start finding cheap options again.
Yes, only inflation is not the only thing you need to factor in. If you really want to answer the question of "are people correct in complaing about car prices?", you need to factor in how much money they have to spend on what.
A first ballpark figure would be calculating how much that pricebracket of car would be as a fraction of a median persons income or better even: how many hours they needed to work to get it – if you want to know if something is harder to get, this is the crucial info.
Just adjusting inflation like that is doing exactly what you critique others for only from the other direction..
Not to mention how much more functionality present day cars have. (mentioned in a couple comments elsewhere, but things like airbags/backup cameras/other sensors etc).
Well of course, but tech gets cheaper over time too. Just look at the price and power of today's MacBook air vs 10 years ago. You get way more value for money as you should
All cars have become a lot more bigger. I was just watching the movie Jewel of the Nile on Disney+. There was a scene, where a dictator and the protagonists cram into to Rolls Royce of 80s and I just thought the average suv these days has more interior space...
While flight travel has got cheaper by making seats more compact and planes more efficient, the cars go the opposite direction - drive luxuriously like kings and burn the planet with bigger and bigger gas guzzlers...
For functionality meant to protect people outside the car (eg. automatic braking, or pedestrian airbags) there is a very good case for it being mandatory.
Unfortunately those are often not on the list of mandatory features.
Electronic stability control doesn't sound like it adds any meaningful costs over ABS. Backup cameras are a cost but not a huge one. What else is there?
ESC in effect mandates the same hardware as the highest end ABS systems and adds throttle by wire on top of that.
Pretty much every AWD car can do "dumb" ABS that uses pedal pressure to run with just the sensors the AWD system uses (front axle speed and rear axle speed) but you need an expensive ABS system with a pump and a throttle by wire system if you want to be able to have the system do stuff when no foot is on the brake.
You can make ABS systems without the pump. They take use the driver's input instead. That's how lots of early systems worked. You give up a little stopping distance in the case where one axle or one side of the car has a ton more traction than the other (think like driving in the gutter of a really strongly crowned road in a downpour) but they work pretty good and are CHEAP, like real cheap.
Throttle control is necessary because you need to lock the driver out of the throttle for ESC. Think of ESC as basically preventing soccer moms from mashing the pedal and getting sideways unnecessarily. Depending on how sideways they get initially the ESC programming is going to want to drag certain brakes to help get everything good again and that requires a pump since the driver's foot isn't there to give pressure (it might still be on the gas).
There's a lot of features that aren't mandatory, but exist in just about any model so they might as well be. It used to be cheaper to get a manual transmission, now there are very few available, and usually on enthusiast models. Very few cars don't have power locks and windows. New cars generally have a touchscreen entertainment system. etc.
I can't speak to the specific years, but there's no doubt that a fair number of small, less expensive, cars have been knocked off - the Rio, the Prius C, the Fiesta... I think there are more than just those (though maybe some of it is lineup consolidation, considering the eventual Kia K3). At the same time, some of the remaining options have had (IMO) huge MSRP hikes.
But you are right that a lot of the price increases relatively track inflation. It may just be that cars going up at the rate of inflation and used cars depreciating less, combined with uneven wage growth and high maintenance and repair costs is leaving a lot of consumers feeling pressured.
Though it's hard to track this down in a way that seems accurate, cars that are under 10 years old and 100k miles always seem remarkably close to MSRP to me, while those that are over those thresholds often seem massively depreciated, but that's anecdote and I haven't done a study. Interest rates me be another piece of the story. When I last bought a car they were basically zero or 1% I think. It gave the latitude to use debt w/o much thought. Very different now.
Which is to say, I do think it's plausible that it's true that some segment of the car market is tracking inflation, and that cars aren't affordable any more.
If that's the case, there's probably more going on, and it may not all be on the cars. Once again, venturing into anecdote, I know multiple people who've had significant wage increases since prepandemic, don't have much if any lifestyle inflation, and somehow seem to be in the position of finding cars and homes less affordable despite making quite significantly more. I'm not really sure exactly what's going on, but the way people are feeling doesn't match the numbers for a fair number of folks with above average incomes, and I can only imagine it must be a lot worse for those w/ less.
You are incorrect. Prius C in 2005 was $21,510 (not really "less expensive") and that is about $34,827.67 in 2025. (See: https://www.kbb.com/toyota/prius/2005/)
Comparing one model (which actually isn’t even the same model) over time doesn’t make sense. Also you’re moving the goalposts here, $28,350 base is not “cheap”
There are a bunch of nice Toyotas in the USA with MSRP just under 25K right now, including the Corolla Hybrid, which is pretty sweet considering how fuel efficient it is. https://www.toyota.com/
- boomers like classic sports and muscle cars. They feel nostalgia towards them because those are the cars high school and college kids used to actually drive
- people who are looking for affordable cars buy used. That market has evaporated. I remember in the late 90s-2000s the newspaper had a junker section where you could get cars (that started) for $100. Imagine what you could get for $2000
- when inflation goes up you lose savings and don’t necessarily get a corresponding wage increase. So just saying it’s equal according to inflation does not mean it’s equal in terms of work hours or job training requirements
I have been thinking more about that recently. It’s very strange we convinced ourselves we were being economically efficient while destroying productive resources.
Not everyone was convinced -- it was pretty transparently
1) a subsidy to the car industry
2) an effort to hasten the proliferation of in-car surveillance tech
Reminds me of the argument of "cars used to be more sturdy than today, where any hit is a total"
Um... Looking at videos of crashing old cars into new cars, the old cars DO NOT hold up to new cars in terms of breaking. The only difference is in old cars the engine would stay intact and the occupants not, while in the new cars its the opposite.
Did you even read the article before making your comment? It is actually data driven like you are demanding, while your own comment is not beyond the most basic sense. A superficial count of models below $25,000k MSRP is not adding to the discussion.
Example 1:
The article claims that the affordable Nissan Versa Note cost $16,545 in 2019 and was discontinued. But not saying that this would be $21,168 in today’s dollars and they leave out an important detail: Nissan still sells the Versa in the US, just not the Note hatchback version. The current Nissan Versa starts at $17,190 according to Nissan’s own website: https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/cars/versa-sedan.html
That’s actually about 20% less expensive than the inflation-adjusted number from 2019.
Example 2:
And then they claim that price increase is: 29.2% - just 3% more than inflation (but they did not want to mention total PCI). But even that number of 29.2% cannot be verified on BLS.gov nor fred.stlouisfed.org . I uploaded FRED and BLS data to chatgpt o3 and it says that new vehicle prices increased 22% from 2019 to 2025 - actually less then inflation:
2019: 146.220
2020: 149.091
2021: 166.653
2022: 176.463
2023: 178.269
2024: 177.552 fred.stlouisfed.org (slight dip from 2023)
2025: ~178.7 (May 2025)
Overall, from 2019 to mid-2025 the index increased from ~146 to ~179, amounting to about a 22% cumulative rise in new vehicle prices.
Reality check:
- In 2025, there are 12 new car models available under $25,000
- In 2005, there were around 10 new models under $15,000 (25k adjusted by inflation)
So the premise that “cars used to be much more affordable” is not true. This article is full of misleading or outdated information that distorts the real trend.
HN deserves better data-driven discussions.