[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by blankall

To be fair there's a few things going on besides just straight up price increases.

Electric vehicles are more expensive, but save money on fuel down the road. Those are obviously far more common than in 2018.

What people expect out of options and performance has substantially increased. When I was purchasing my first new vehicle in 2010, power windows was still an option you had to pay for. Now, you have full on computers standard in every vehicle. The same is true of performance. People just drive cars with sub 6 second 0-60 times, navigation assists, turbo engines, etc... for daily commutes.

People also don't really buy that many cars. People are buying SUVs or larger vehicles at a much higher rate. Many companies don't sell compact sedans (except for the sporty kind) anymore.

You can still get many vehicles in the $35k price range. For example, a most basic SUVs are still under $40k, but then people start throwing on a crazy amount of options and performance enhancements. They walk away with a vehicle with a 6.5 0-60 time, full leather seats, and a large stereo.

But yes, inflation is a thing, as were vehicle shortages. If you look at what you get for $36k now vs what you got for $36k in 2018, it's probably not that dissimilar. You're probably looking at closer to a $5-10k price hike.

I just looked at what our 2015 Impreza goes for now, it's pretty much 10k more, and a pretty similar vehicle, so a decent benchmark. $1k a year isn't too crazy.