The average new car price in March 2016 was $33,666. There are plenty of "mass-produced" cars in this price range. http://mediaroom.kbb.com/new-car-transaction-prices-up-2-per...
On the other hand median just gives you the value that split the distribution in two exact parts.
Price/Income distributions are the perfect match if you want to see avg bias taken to its extreme.
e.g.
median of [2,2,2,2,2,2,2,100] = 2 average of [2,2,2,2,2,2,2,100] = 14.25
Average (or mean) is the sum of the values divided by the number of values. Because of the way it is calculated, it is more likely to skew when the data includes extremely large or extremely small values. Median on the other hand is a way to measure the "middle value". For data sets of odd cardinality, it is simply the middle value, and for even cardinality, it is the mean of the two middlemost values. You can have a large number of extreme values with no effect on the median value, depending on the data.
As an example let us look at a hypothetical neighborhood. We have a family making 50k, another 100k, another 150k. Their average salary is 100k with the same median. Assume some super rich guy making 10 million. Our average goes up to several million dollars, but the median sits at 125k, more representative of where the data is clumped.
None of this to say that median is a good measurement in what I'll call malicious data sets. Imagine a data set with 1000 entries of negative 10m and 1000 of positive 10m. If I add a new data point of 5000, this is my median but doesn't represent my data at all.
Bonus: there's also "mode" which measure the value that has the most entries. E.g. in a set of 1 2 2 2 3 4 5, mode is 2.
SUVs are everywhere. Light trucks are everywhere. Minivans are everywhere. Most of these are in the $35K+ range (the F150 -- the top selling US vehicle -- has an average selling price of $41,776). Even a decently equipped Honda Accord (along with light trucks, the most popular car in the US. Not the Civic, but the Accord) is pushing past $30K.
Often the median and the average skew. But minus actual data beyond just anecdotes, the average is the best we have.
Since this doesn't include used cars, I think it's fair to say that the average household is spending less than that.
Yet the #1, most popular vehicle sold in the US, the Ford F-150, sells for over $41K generally. There are many other completely ordinary, most certainly mass produced, vehicles in that price range. Bought by entirely "normal" people.
These discussions always remind me of a great Onion article (http://www.theonion.com/article/sociologist-considers-own-be...) about projecting one's own lot across the population at large, and using our own situation and choices to define "normal".
Obviously it will be "mass-produced" for any reasonable definition of the phrase. My point was that this is still a luxury vehicle that will be purchased by people whose wallets will be able to handle production problems.
"Yet the #1, most popular vehicle sold in the US, the Ford F-150"
There is a reason for that. That is a work vehicle.
"These discussions always remind me of a great Onion article about projecting one's own lot across the population at large, and using our own situation and choices to define "normal"."
This is hilarious because it's exactly what I'm responding to. Some set of the HN crowd, despite this entire discussion, still seems to think $40k is a normal amount of money to spend on a car. It isn't. And, again, I think the evidence is on my side. The median family does not, in fact, buy $40k cars, regardless of whether you think I'm projecting or not.
Here, for example, is some information on median used car prices:
One minor counter to this is that you shouldn't get too caught up in the hype about this being a mass-produced car. HN and tech journalism is a bit of a bubble. Normal people do not spend $35-40k on a car.
You are moving the goal posts around to somehow derive a win through some simply wrong statements. That's hardly uncommon, and is the manifestation of ego.
There is a reason for that. That is a work vehicle.
The overwhelming bulk of F150s are bought for personal use, which is exactly why the average price is so high now. The work truck doesn't have the leather interior and xenon lighting package.
And, again, I think the evidence is on my side.
I have no idea what your "side" even is (though your core claims are simply wrong, it seems that you're trying to say that this is such an exclusive, abnormal price range of cars that the buyers are more forgiving? I find that almost impossible to believe: if you want to see an angry, demanding customer, get to know someone with a BMW 3-series). There are almost 18 million new vehicles sold in the US per year. The average price is pushing towards $35K. This is where Tesla is getting involved (I don't think anyone makes cars for the used car market...), exactly at the sweet spot of the average price.
Your priceonomics link has literally zero relevance to this, or data applicable to this discussion.
You desperately want to be right, and that's a pretty common sentiment. Fine. But your original claim was simply wrong (elsewhere you twisted it to not only somehow claim that these people aren't "normal", but also that people who buy a more expensive car are wrong and shouldn't be doing it anyways), however much you claim that people missed your ethereal point. The Tesla 3 absolutely falls within the realm of mass produced cars, and millions of entirely "normal" people are buying that price range of vehicle. They are targeting a completely ordinary market.
And then this is where it gets weird: they then tell you, nope, you're wrong, your point was whatever they first interpreted it to be, no matter that you just clarified that that wasn't your point and tried to clear up the confusion.
Please don't do this. It's a really uncharitable and unnecessary way to conduct a discussion. I just told you what I intended my point to be. What do you gain by claiming that I'm hiding some other actual point? What would I gain by hiding some other point? In this particular case, I didn't even put any blame on the reader. I blamed myself and apologized for being unclear. If that's goal-post moving, then what hope do any of us have?
He claimed :Normal people do not spend $35-40k on a car.
He further clarified that his definition of normal person to be one that doesn't tend to buy new cars, only used.
You point out that 18 million new cars are sold per year and that average new car price is over 30K a year. That completely misses the point that approx 60 million cars are sold in the US per year or around 1/3 of cars sold are new cars. The average price of a used car sold in the US is around $18,800. Therefore the average car sold is A) used B) cost less than $30K.
Number of Used cars sold: http://www.cnbc.com/2014/08/22/used-car-market-showing-no-si...
Average price of a Used car: http://www.edmunds.com/about/press/used-car-prices-increase-...
Creating an affordable EV at mass consumer scale is a much harder problem than creating a luxury EV at modest volume.
...which was advanced in the context that regular people wouldn't be as forgiving with Tesla's production problems as current owners have been. My point then (and now) was that we shouldn't get too carried away with that line of thinking, because the Model 3 is still going to be a luxury car that will be purchased by people who can afford to deal with some issues.
People who buy new BMWs (by analogy) know that they're going to cost more to fix than a used Honda Civic.
That was my entire point. If it wasn't clear, then I'll take the blame for that. What I won't cop to is some sort of concealed sociological attack. Now, if I know what's good for me, I'll shut up :P
Um, just wow. I find it hilarious that you seem incapable of understanding you are talking about new cars while dionidium is talking about used cars.
And then you go off the rails with some strange conspiracy theory about dionidium labeling people as not normal and that people buying luxury cards as wrong when no such thing happened.
I think you should apply your words to yourself and reflect a bit.
"Normal people do not spend $35-40k on a car."
That is dionidium's phrasing, and you're throwing slurs at me? Really?
"you seem incapable of understanding you are talking about new cars while dionidium is talking about used cars"
In a conversation that can only be about new cars, in a discussion that was about mass production (wait..were they talking about the mass production of used cars?)
EDIT: I realize now that talmand is simply a troll, and I apologize for biting.
I see you didn't reflect upon yourself. You really need to stop projecting. I suspect you are just having fun with us.
Normal people do not spend that much money on a car, new or used.
I would have to assume that all used cars were mass-produced at some point in the past, or were all used cars hand manufactured?
>> If you have nothing to add, maybe keep your nonsense to yourself.
Oh, yeah, you're just having fun at our expense.
1) It is absolutely true that they sell more retail trucks than fleet trucks
2) I was merely pointing out that it wouldn't be the most popular vehicle on the market without the fleet sales
3) This has nothing to do with my original point and I probably shouldn't even have responded to it
If you want controversial, here you go: a lot of people in this thread own cars that cost $40k and up on a salary that doesn't justify it. They think they can justify it. Everyone is telling them they can afford it. Their friends all have similar salaries and similar cars.
But they're spending too much.
http://www.financialsamurai.com/the-110th-rule-for-car-buyin...
Also is driving for Uber really good financial advice ?
And why do people use gross income. Should use net income. It's not like you can deduct your car on taxes.
Fact 1: there are a lot more super-expensive cars than super-cheap cars.
Fact 2: The guy you replied to is talking about what a family spends on a car, not what they spend on a new car
Fact 3: income inequality means there are a lot more poor families than wealthy families. income distribution in america is not a bell curve.
Regarding "Fact 2", I have no idea what they're even arguing. Their core point was absurd, and they really truly seem to think it's the rich who are buying $35K cars (not "normal", despite being utterly normal for new cars), which is laughable nonsense.
This is all just a diversion. The Tesla 3 is absolutely in the center of the average new car, that normal people buy. Tesla makes, unsurprisingly, vehicles for the new car market. Tens of millions of completely normal Americans buy new cars yearly.
Again, the data tells us that an enormous number of completely normal, ordinary Americans buy new cars regularly, and that they spend a lot. Anecdotes or personal projections can give us a completely skewed notion about this (e.g. I know zero people who own a gun. Therefore no one owns guns), but if you compare the data to your anecdote, clearly they don't correspond.
And FWIW (which is little), every one of my neighbors has vehicles worth well over the average. In the exurb town I live in on the outskirts of major city, you never, ever see an older car, or a junker, or anything of the sorts. Burger flippers have shiny new Kias. The middle class have giant SUVs. And so on.
That's what we're discussing. That the amount people pay for a car, is less than what people pay for a new car. That's the only point I leapt in to defend, and if you're arguing with me against other points, then you're talking to the wrong guy.
Look- the average number of arms for a tennis player is less than 2. Similarly, some (perhaps most) people spend their car-acquiring dollars on used cars. So, the average amount people spend on a car is less than the average sale price of a new car. QED, end of discussion.
Now, you want to argue that among people who buy a new car, $35k is acceptably average? Okay, fine, whatever, I don't care, and neither does anybody else in this thread.
This conversation is specifically and only about new cars, in this case the Tesla Model 3. It is outrageous that you're implying that I'm the one diverting the conversation, when the very root post by dionidium was a completely irrelevant non-sequitur as they injected some completely irrelevant sociology bias into the conversation. If we were discussing the average price of a fast food meal, would a comment about a Cup O' Noodles have any relevance?
No one cares to argue what people pay for used cars, or for no car at all, because that is irrelevant to this discussion.
I understand that's certainly how you've been behaving. Despite several people trying to disabuse you of that notion.
Rebutting an argument by claiming it is not based on any evidence? While providing absolutely no evidence of your own? Okay, cool.
> Regarding "Fact 2", I have no idea what they're even arguing
Their core point was if you're discussing people who buy new cars, you're already skewing away from the poorer demographics. People spend less on average to buy a car, than they do to buy a new car.
> The Tesla 3 is absolutely in the center of the average new car, that normal people buy
The tesla 3 is a little above the average price that people pay for a new car, among the fraction of people who buy new cars. Which most people don't do.
That's the mean price though, and the price curve has a very long tail. The median is significantly lower.