Automakers have all but abandoned the budget market

I wonder how much of it is business strategy and how much of it is just how the economy has been moving over the past several years. Between every other car on the road where I live being a tesla and housing almost doubling in price, maybe companies are raising prices because a lot of people have that kind of money?

And it makes sense, interest rates have been 0...tech company valuations are absurd, with insane tech salaries and RSUs...the stock market reaching all-time high in 2020. People gambling money on crypto, NFTs, wallstreebets, etc. It feels like the economy has been in turbo mode and it reached a peak where people had so much money that they were willing to put it into beanie babies and tulips because they had nothing else to do with it.

Businesses are going to keep raising prices until their numbers start to go down. Despite the inflation we've been seeing, people are still spending money [1].

I think it's easy to blame business strategy, but I think it's worth looking at other economic factors that are causing business strategy...like the decade of free money due to the never-ending QE policy of the fed.

Eventually we'll run out of other people's money and we'll enter a recession. Or we'll just enter into a period of extreme class divide where the middle class doesn't exist anymore...there's either extremely wealthy or poverty.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/15/retail-sales-january-2023-.h...

The flaw in your comparison is when I move out of my bottom-end house to move up the housing ladder, a developer comes in and buys my affordable house, and proceeds to put a 4500 sq. ft. monstrosity on the 7500 sq. ft. lot, thereby pricing out the bottom-end. I see this constantly in the Seattle suburbs of Redmond and Kirkland. Especially Kirkland; at the rate they're going, there won't be any "starter homes" in Kirkland in ten years.

And, yeah, the "2017->2023" comparison irked me as well, with not a single nod to the highest inflation we've seen in over a generation in those intervening years.

Traditionally higher end housing is better built, while traditionally economical cars like Corolla and Civic have been among the most long lasting with the lowest maintenance. Luxury cars typically require vastly more maintenance to keep going which is why they depreciate like stones after the warranty period. This is a big part of why I drive a basic car even though I make SWE dollars, I value durability. More luxury cars is probably bad for the common man and for the environment.

But Will they? Why would everyone choose to pay more just because large housing landlords wish it so?

Why sell 20 $20k cars that make $2k in profit each ($40k profit), when you can sell one $80k car that makes $40k in profit? That's the reason they're all ditching budget cars. The thing is that the budget cars aren't actually gone, they've put 2 inches of lift on them, jacked up the price, and then called them crossovers.

But now a $5,500 civic is 15 years old already with over 200k miles.