Many of us don't have the desire or ability to cough up $50,000+ for a badly made piece of shit that does nothing but violate our privacy and contributes to everything we hate about our cities.
This seems disingenuous. Privacy concerns are valid, but you can get a new car (Ford Maverick) for $25k. The hybrid powertrain would only be $1k more, for an ~40% reduction in fuel consumption
I disagree. In my experience with the younger folk, it's almost always an issue that driving is way too expensive for what you get.
You can do almost everything that would've necessitated owning a car on the internet now, and the cost of your car payment, insurance and registration, and gas is just way too high for the things that still require it. It's cheaper to just pay a taxi or find someone to give you a ride for the few times you actually need it.
You can't get a maverick for 25k now and never have. It also goes up in price for the 25 model year and spans comfortably into the 40k range pre markup.
Uhm, I paid less than 25k for mine, and thousands of others did too. Sure, I had to pre-order because I knew they would never be in stock at that price and post covid backups. If you walked onto a lot to try to buy one, yeah, you were upcharged.
Now, if you were to buy one, yes, the base price is now essentially 25k vs 20k.