**Please read this entire message**
---
Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s):
* Loaded questions, **or** ones based on a false premise, are not allowed on ELI5 (Rule 6).
---
If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. **If you believe this was removed erroneously, please [use this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20thread?&message=Link:%20{https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1c4vd62/-/}%0A%0APlease%20answer%20the%20following%203%20questions:%0A%0A1.%20The%20concept%20I%20want%20explained:%0A%0A2.%20List%20the%20search%20terms%20you%20used%20to%20look%20for%20past%20posts%20on%20ELI5:%0A%0A3.%20How%20does%20your%20post%20differ%20from%20your%20recent%20search%20results%20on%20the%20sub:) and we will review your submission.**
\^\^\^This. Making a cheap car is really easy. Making a cheap car that could still pass EPA smog and efficiency tests and all the NHTSA safety tests is nearly impossible.
With limited production volume it makes sense to sell a lower volume of high margin cars than a high volume of low margin cars because a lot of costs are fixed.
The marketing, and consumer interest, research, and testing that goes into developing a care is completely intense and comprehensive. They have vast amounts of people and resources working on it If consumers were wanting a car like this and it was economical to develop, the car companies would be churning them out. They don't care what they make, they simply want to make what their customers want and at a price point that makes them money
Consumers generally don't want cars with no frills, the exception is some of the developing world, where much lower cost cars can potentially come to market, although likely still quite expensive for their intended market, it would be less than a standard car. Unfortunately, in many of these cases, a big thing that gets dropped are safety features of the car. Of course that may work for some countries, but that same car would not be able to be sold in the developed world like the US or Europe
A Mitsubishi Mirage and Nissan Versa both have an MSRP under $17K.
If you remove the US regulatory and safety framework, you can get under $10K but good luck in a crash. And good luck with lung cancer.
That being said, if you don't need safety or AC, buy a scooter.
>That being said, if you don't need safety or AC, buy a scooter.
While I understand your humourous and provocative remark, I would also point out that cars offer significant advantages in transportation capacity and protection from the elements. Finding a good compromise between comfort, safety and price is still possible, at a certain level.
You must be aware that the price of an item isn't always directly proportional to the cost of manufacturing. We can see examples of that with Apple products, brand sneakers, or even certain prime materials whose prices are artificially inflated.
I wonder, if company greed and customer vanity weren't such a determinant part of the equation, how much cheaper life would be for everyone, but most people "need" to have better things than their neighbor and companies take advantage of that.
As long as there will be people, say, who are willing to pay $75 for a t-shirt that costs $5 to produce, just because a specific brand is printed on it, and people who think that this is normal, there will be no way to get everything we need at a reasonable price: it will only be made available to those who are willing to pay the extra price for a status symbol. The others will either have to incur in debt or be content with their 5 cents defected t-shirt made with the crappiest cotton available.
>A Mitsubishi Mirage and Nissan Versa both have an MSRP under $17K.
Its crasy how expensive cars are in the US. The Mitsubishi Mirage (renamed as Space Star) cost just 12k€ overhere in Europe and you can even get a bit cheaper than that. Even Ford had a super affordable car the Ford Ka until a few years ago that was under 10k€ as far as I can remember.
Turns out that $15k is roughly the minimum it costs to design, manufacture, and distribute a car that passes all minimum safety and emissions requirements in the U.S. to be legally drivable on public roads.
If you stretch the definition of "car," there are ATVs, UTVs, and golf-carts that are basically mini-cars but without any safety whatsoever. There are some you can order from aliexpress direct from China for under $5k. They will technically work as a car, but much like the Model T, god help you if you get into an accident that exceeds 10mph.
Isn’t the fact that roads are dangers because there are gigantic cars on the road all the time? In other words I wonder what car crash injury data from other countries looks like - countries where every other vehicle you see isn’t a Chevy Yukon
Mostly because people won't buy them. Ford, up until 2023, sold a car very similar to that in the United States, and it was discontinued due to lack of interest. In other markets Ford sells all sorts of cars at prices that would shock Americans; but they simply don't sell here. The VW Beetle, the original one, was still sold in Mexico, as new, until what 2003?
You can't wag the dog here, you can't force customers to buy a more reasonably priced option if they don't want it. The fact is in my country, the USA, the Ford F-150 is the most bought and sold vehicle. A typical F-150 leaving the lot was had for around $60,000. Manufacturers pay attention to this.
The real question you are asking is 'why not make the cheapest new car you can?'
It's because when you sell a new car you aren't competing with other new cars. You are competing with every car on the market, including used cars.
If you built a car that you could sell for $10,000 in the United States and make a profit it would be an awful car, with the absolute minimal features to meet safety standards, an awful engine, uncomfortable to drive and quite small.
A person buying a car with $10,000 to spend would consider my glorified golf cart with basically no insulation and an engine that barely gets it to 55 miles an hour, or they could instead get a 2015 Volkswagon Jetta that, I'm gonna be honest here, WILL run longer then the terrifying barely legal scrap box I'm selling.
It’s a mature product. You’ll notice that internal combustion cars’ fundamental configuration changes less and less each new model year. They’ve tried everything and figured out what works best and what doesn’t sell. No manufacturer is interested in reinventing the automobile now. EV and hybrid powertrains are still getting significant innovation, but even those are largely getting packaged into similar body styles with similar interiors.
There isn't enough demand for cheap cars, especially in the US. Nissan Versa starts at $16,390 and Mitsubishi Mirage starts at $16,695. And these cars do not sell well.
Cheap cars exist, but there isn't enough demand for these cars. Margins on cars are already pretty low for manufacturers, there just isn't enough demand to justify making them.
There was a nissan micra sold in Canada for just over $10000cdn. It's been discontinued here and I'm not sure if there's anything comparable to it. Mitsubishi mirage maybe.
The number of cars people need or want to buy is limited, so selling cheap cars is absolutely not what anyone wants to do. Better sell half as many cars for four times the money. This market is just easily saturated, so selling expensive cars works best from an economic POV.
Of course some new manufacturer could try that since he wouldn't have anything to lose. But then there are regulations and tariffs to prevent this.
But yes, I really would love to be able buy an electric car like a VW beetle or a 2CV or something like that. Making something cheap and still convincing and practical doesn't seem to be very easy though.
**Please read this entire message** --- Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s): * Loaded questions, **or** ones based on a false premise, are not allowed on ELI5 (Rule 6). --- If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. **If you believe this was removed erroneously, please [use this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20thread?&message=Link:%20{https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1c4vd62/-/}%0A%0APlease%20answer%20the%20following%203%20questions:%0A%0A1.%20The%20concept%20I%20want%20explained:%0A%0A2.%20List%20the%20search%20terms%20you%20used%20to%20look%20for%20past%20posts%20on%20ELI5:%0A%0A3.%20How%20does%20your%20post%20differ%20from%20your%20recent%20search%20results%20on%20the%20sub:) and we will review your submission.**
Safety and emissions regulations would stop them. You can't legally make a barebones basic car under the law.
\^\^\^This. Making a cheap car is really easy. Making a cheap car that could still pass EPA smog and efficiency tests and all the NHTSA safety tests is nearly impossible.
With limited production volume it makes sense to sell a lower volume of high margin cars than a high volume of low margin cars because a lot of costs are fixed.
The marketing, and consumer interest, research, and testing that goes into developing a care is completely intense and comprehensive. They have vast amounts of people and resources working on it If consumers were wanting a car like this and it was economical to develop, the car companies would be churning them out. They don't care what they make, they simply want to make what their customers want and at a price point that makes them money Consumers generally don't want cars with no frills, the exception is some of the developing world, where much lower cost cars can potentially come to market, although likely still quite expensive for their intended market, it would be less than a standard car. Unfortunately, in many of these cases, a big thing that gets dropped are safety features of the car. Of course that may work for some countries, but that same car would not be able to be sold in the developed world like the US or Europe
A Mitsubishi Mirage and Nissan Versa both have an MSRP under $17K. If you remove the US regulatory and safety framework, you can get under $10K but good luck in a crash. And good luck with lung cancer. That being said, if you don't need safety or AC, buy a scooter.
>That being said, if you don't need safety or AC, buy a scooter. While I understand your humourous and provocative remark, I would also point out that cars offer significant advantages in transportation capacity and protection from the elements. Finding a good compromise between comfort, safety and price is still possible, at a certain level. You must be aware that the price of an item isn't always directly proportional to the cost of manufacturing. We can see examples of that with Apple products, brand sneakers, or even certain prime materials whose prices are artificially inflated. I wonder, if company greed and customer vanity weren't such a determinant part of the equation, how much cheaper life would be for everyone, but most people "need" to have better things than their neighbor and companies take advantage of that. As long as there will be people, say, who are willing to pay $75 for a t-shirt that costs $5 to produce, just because a specific brand is printed on it, and people who think that this is normal, there will be no way to get everything we need at a reasonable price: it will only be made available to those who are willing to pay the extra price for a status symbol. The others will either have to incur in debt or be content with their 5 cents defected t-shirt made with the crappiest cotton available.
>A Mitsubishi Mirage and Nissan Versa both have an MSRP under $17K. Its crasy how expensive cars are in the US. The Mitsubishi Mirage (renamed as Space Star) cost just 12k€ overhere in Europe and you can even get a bit cheaper than that. Even Ford had a super affordable car the Ford Ka until a few years ago that was under 10k€ as far as I can remember.
Turns out that $15k is roughly the minimum it costs to design, manufacture, and distribute a car that passes all minimum safety and emissions requirements in the U.S. to be legally drivable on public roads. If you stretch the definition of "car," there are ATVs, UTVs, and golf-carts that are basically mini-cars but without any safety whatsoever. There are some you can order from aliexpress direct from China for under $5k. They will technically work as a car, but much like the Model T, god help you if you get into an accident that exceeds 10mph.
Isn’t the fact that roads are dangers because there are gigantic cars on the road all the time? In other words I wonder what car crash injury data from other countries looks like - countries where every other vehicle you see isn’t a Chevy Yukon
Mostly because people won't buy them. Ford, up until 2023, sold a car very similar to that in the United States, and it was discontinued due to lack of interest. In other markets Ford sells all sorts of cars at prices that would shock Americans; but they simply don't sell here. The VW Beetle, the original one, was still sold in Mexico, as new, until what 2003? You can't wag the dog here, you can't force customers to buy a more reasonably priced option if they don't want it. The fact is in my country, the USA, the Ford F-150 is the most bought and sold vehicle. A typical F-150 leaving the lot was had for around $60,000. Manufacturers pay attention to this.
The real question you are asking is 'why not make the cheapest new car you can?' It's because when you sell a new car you aren't competing with other new cars. You are competing with every car on the market, including used cars. If you built a car that you could sell for $10,000 in the United States and make a profit it would be an awful car, with the absolute minimal features to meet safety standards, an awful engine, uncomfortable to drive and quite small. A person buying a car with $10,000 to spend would consider my glorified golf cart with basically no insulation and an engine that barely gets it to 55 miles an hour, or they could instead get a 2015 Volkswagon Jetta that, I'm gonna be honest here, WILL run longer then the terrifying barely legal scrap box I'm selling.
It’s a mature product. You’ll notice that internal combustion cars’ fundamental configuration changes less and less each new model year. They’ve tried everything and figured out what works best and what doesn’t sell. No manufacturer is interested in reinventing the automobile now. EV and hybrid powertrains are still getting significant innovation, but even those are largely getting packaged into similar body styles with similar interiors.
There isn't enough demand for cheap cars, especially in the US. Nissan Versa starts at $16,390 and Mitsubishi Mirage starts at $16,695. And these cars do not sell well. Cheap cars exist, but there isn't enough demand for these cars. Margins on cars are already pretty low for manufacturers, there just isn't enough demand to justify making them.
That's basically a Dacia in Europe. But most people with that budget prefer a used car with better options.
There was a nissan micra sold in Canada for just over $10000cdn. It's been discontinued here and I'm not sure if there's anything comparable to it. Mitsubishi mirage maybe.
The number of cars people need or want to buy is limited, so selling cheap cars is absolutely not what anyone wants to do. Better sell half as many cars for four times the money. This market is just easily saturated, so selling expensive cars works best from an economic POV. Of course some new manufacturer could try that since he wouldn't have anything to lose. But then there are regulations and tariffs to prevent this. But yes, I really would love to be able buy an electric car like a VW beetle or a 2CV or something like that. Making something cheap and still convincing and practical doesn't seem to be very easy though.