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Comment by bredren | Hacker News Reader

Since 14% of renters are behind on rent and evictions begin June 30, aren’t vehicle repossessions going to kick in July / August?

Presumably, due in part to eviction protection, they have been able to divert all or a portion of their rent payments to keeping up with bad car loans for commute vehicles that often will not be needed.

These folks need them for housing unfortunately.

If repossessed cars start showing up that should put downward pressure on people wanting to buy new ones. Most new cars still suck / Do not offer meaningful new features.

And of those who do buy new, that will be another fresh supply of used cars.

How long is this chip shortage due to vehicles going to last given these circumstances?

https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/05/07/are-renters-and-the-u-s...

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> Most new cars still suck / Do not offer meaningful new features.

In terms of bells and whistles? Yeah, not that much. But in terms of safety tech, there has been a huge progress in last 10 years and it’s not slowing down. New cars are not only getting harder to crash, but in case of crash they’re getting better and better at protecting you.

Safety is main reason why I update my cars every few years, even tho it’s pretty costly. But so is having my family seriously injured or killed.

> Safety is main reason why I update my cars every few years

It's probably only only worth it after a redesign (every 6 years, or so), and I'd wait for the second model year in the new generation for them to work out the kinks. That said, the EV of added safety, especially coming from a car generation build before the small overlap frontal crash test was added in 2012, is pretty good.

A couple of days ago I was watching a dramatic video showing test collisions of old cars vs modern cars. I was surprised by how much safer a 2016 car was than a 1992 car. Not to mention the 1959 death trap Bel Air. (It's alarming though that 1992 is now the olden days.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TikJC0x65X0

Yeah I remember talking to my grandfather a few years ago and he made a comment about cars being so fragile now. One accident and they crumple costing thousands to fix when "back in the day" it would just be a bent bumper. I explained that in the old days the car was built sturdier and survived but the people had worse odds, now the car is sacrificed to take the brunt of the force. That finally clicked for him as he remembered quite a few friends being in life threatening crashes back then but barely any today.

I always recall the line from back to the future:

  Marty, he's in a '46 Ford, we're in a DeLorean - He'd rip through us like we were tin foil!

Maybe that was better for society.

In those days, dare devils didnt last long.

Now, they can crash and kill, and drive again in a few hours.

I often wonder about things like this. It reminds of Tullock's spike:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Tullock#Tullock's_spike

But a 2010+ car is not that far off a brand new car. Used doesn't just mean old junker!

In terms of safety technology, your average 2010 car is missing a bunch of things that are found on your average 2021 car. Automatic emergency braking, side airbags, hell even the backup camera!

Most new cars still suck / Do not offer meaningful new features

That really depends on how old your car is. I generally buy instead of lease, and run the car until it starts having regular problems. As a result, my car is 12 years old, and any new one from the last few years is a significant upgrade in terms of features. I don't really want a monthly car payment again, but I'm almost looking forward to when my current car starts having enough problems to make the upgrade worth it.

If you don't want a monthly car payment, start your “monthly car payment” into a savings account now. You'll end up paying less for your next car if you can maximise the up-front payment.

If you don’t want a monthly car payment pay a monthly car payment so later you can have a smaller monthly car payment?

I think the idea is that you accrue the interest yourself instead of paying it to someone else.

The amount of interest accrued in a savings account is pretty wimpy though.

Yeah, but a savings account? Interest rates for savings are abysmal, and auto-loans are themselves frequently near (or at) zero these days, so it's losing advice as-given.

Better advice: put the money in the market or other higher-yielding investment, then take a low or no interest loan on the vehicle when the time comes so those investments can continue to grow at the much higher clip. Money's just too cheap to give away your own cash. Obviously, if the interest rate environment changes, this should be re-evaluated.

What percentage are you talking about as being abysmal. 0.1% offered at some shitty brick and mortar bank is terrible but nearly all the online first banks offer (or offered before covid) what I thought was a decent 1-3%

Highest these days is like 0.5%. If you are really lucky you can find 0.8%

I'm not seeing anything like that. Here's the latest roundup of "the best rates" over at Bankrate [0], which includes some online-only banks. Highest I see there is 0.57%, with most at 0.4% and 0.5%.

You might be able to scrounge up a few basis points somewhere if you're really determined and/or willing to meet some requirements. Still, even with our low-inflation these days [1], you're actually losing money in these savings accounts.

Main point though is that it's more of a relative game vs your ROI elsewhere. Even indexes and ETFs that are reasonably "low-risk" are routinely returning much more these days, and of course over the long haul equity markets still beat this handily, even when smoothed for downturns.

[0] https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/rates/

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/244983/projected-inflati...

TMobile Money is 4% for the first $3000 and 1% after that for customers and 1% flat for everyone else. Ally used to be pretty good but I've moved all my savings over for now

Yeah, obviously not scalable, but cool for a risk-averse T-Mobile wireless customer who wants a guaranteed 4% on $3K.

It is funny though that they give the example that at $5,000 saved your effective APY is around 2.79%. I mean, the bottom line is that as soon as you get above $3K, any additional savings drops to a lowly 1%, which doesn't keep pace with inflation (i.e. you're losing money). But they're presenting it like 2.79% is some kind of average that matters, thus implying it's a good idea to keep pouring money in.

The reality is that the offer is not an average, but two discrete terms of 4% and 1%. And, on the latter, you're trading whatever other returns you could've made elsewhere for that miserly 1%. Much better to put it elsewhere, even for those who bite on the initial $3K for 4%.

Interest on savings accounts is far less than inflation, out side of an emergency fund there is little reason to save cash.

Isn't the benefit of the car loan that you can have emergency funds? I mean, if you save up $5k and get a car loan for $25k you for years you effectively have a 2 year emergency buffer.

If you pay off the car up front you may run into liquidity issues until you have restored your emergency fund.

No one should consider using their emergency fund for anything other than emergency's, so I am not sure what your point it

The comment I was responding too talked specifically about saving money in a savings account for the purposes of buying expensive things like a car. It should go with out saying one should not use their emergency fund for these purchases (unless they are an emergency)

Once you have the 6mos to 1 year of expenses in your emergency fund you should divert any other cash to other accounts such as Debt Repayment (providing the debt is more than 5-7% interest or current inflation) and/or investments such as tax advantaged retirement accounts

You don't have to put it into a savings account. I do the same thing but into a stock fund.

Yes, we save a healthy portion of our income, but increasing that now just shifts the timing, not the pain, of when have to start a new car payment.

Depends on the interest rate of the loan, inflation rate of money between now and the time the loan is paid off, and any gains/losses you could make now investing that money.

Current low interest rates on car loans make that approach a bit pointless.

They've been low for a while now too. As annoying as it is to have a $670 car payment each month, you really can't beat 0% interest on a $40k loan. Especially in a market where the average monthly return on $40k in stocks has been pretty substantial.

Except for the part where $0 down, 0% interest loan make people go for the 40k car they don't need instead of the 25k one.

That's really neither here nor there. The discussion was more about transforming, "save up and pay cash" to "save up and get a loan anyway because interest is so cheap."

I picked $40k because that's roughly the median price of a new car. Whether your going for a $25k car, or a $125k car, the advice is the same: get a low-interest loan.

0% loan on the sticker price. The goal of coming in with cash is to get as far as possible below the sticker price.

Dealers don't care whether you pay cash or finance. Just call around dealers within a certain mile radius you are willing to drive and find the best deal. This has been, and will always be, the best way to get a deal.

Don’t dealerships make a good percentage of their profits from finance charges? The last time I bought a car, it took an hour of cajoling to get the cash price of a three year lease

Absolutely. To take Ford as an example, It’s not that huge an exaggeration to suggest Ford manufactured cars with virtually no profit margin to help sell profitable loans via its Ford Credit arm at various times in its recent history, rather than providing loans to help sell the cars at profit. Ford Credit is a huge part of Ford’ overall business.

This is a really common misconception that buyers have.

Just stop and think for a second - put yourself in the dealer's shoes - why do you think the dealer would want cash? No reason. They don't want your cash. A cash buyer is a pain. They want to sell you a loan.

The last time I bought a car I offered cash, and they countered with a four-figure discount (on total cost of ownership) if I took part of it as a loan. I now have that part of the price invested, creating money, while I gradually pay the loan.

And my credit score went up as I had a new, responsible loan!

Cash buyers are fools, unless you're really at the point of valuing not having a loan for moral reasons (maybe a German?) at four-figures.

Yes, and the smart move there is to take the offer and pay it early, which is still stupid on the dealer's part.

Assuming you can. Some deals are set up so that you have to pay most of the interest even if you pay the loan off early, or other prepayment penalties.

Yes, prepayment penalties are a thing. But every time this comes up, we see reports of too-good-to-be -true deals that don't have them. See, for example, this thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14484615

I also had a friend do exactly what I described, and there was another thread where they only had to make two payments and then could pay off the rest without penalty (and even that was an unspoken gentlemen's agreement with the dealer) -- will find if I get a chance.

The point is, it's simply not warranted to assume as a bedrock of truth that no dealer every makes a confused deal in this respect, as chrisseaton was insisting.

And if you had walked out the door they would have run after you to take the cash deal AND given you the discount. You think they prefer to deal with the time and uncertainty of putting you through a loan application, when they could pocket the same sale in cash? Nobody is coming out with less money on a loan purchase vs. cash, except the buyer.

I think you're mistaken about how dealerships and car sales are structured, at least in places like the UK and the US. Maybe it's different where you are?

They get a proportion of the sale price, and they get paid a referral fee for you opening a loan, and then on top of that they can offer extras that you probably don't need like fabric protection products.

> Nobody is coming out with less money on a loan purchase vs. cash, except the buyer.

The dealer is paid to get you to get a loan. If they don't get the loan, they get less money. My understanding is that their referral fee is somewhat weak about how much the loan actually has to be, so they just care that you take it.

It's worth it to them to discount the price by less than their loan referral fee, in order to get the loan referral fee.

> And if you had walked out the door they would have run after you to take the cash deal AND given you the discount.

No they'd just have sold to someone willing to pay their price.

There's a car supply shortage... that's the whole point of the article... did you miss that? If you want to buy a new car at the moment and you go in haggling them on a mid to high end spec car they'll just tell you to fuck off and you won't get the car you want.

> they get paid a referral fee for you opening a loan

Which is added in to the finance charges or amount borrowed. Ever wonder why the salesmen always want to negotiate a "payment" amount instead of a purchase price?

> No they'd just have sold to someone willing to pay their price.

And I'd have just gone to another dealer willing to work with me on my terms.

> There's a car supply shortage

True, and that causes higher prices overall. But negotiation strategies for getting the best deal haven't changed.

> Ever wonder why the salesmen always want to negotiate a "payment" amount instead of a purchase price?

Well that's the point - say you want agree a purchase price for the car before you talk about how you'll pay. Do that and get an actual number from them. Then...

Offer to pay the agreed price cash and ask for a discount based on this - you won't get one because there's no benefit to the dealer in taking cash it's just an inconvenience to them.

or...

Offer to take at least a small a loan and ask for a discount based on this - you might get one because the way they are established means there are strong incentives for them to make loans.

In either case you can of course threaten to walk away if the price isn't right, but paying cash isn't going to increase your bargaining power it's going to diminish it - 'not only is this person wanting to pay less but they also want to fuck up my loan referral rate and fee and make me unpopular with my manager'. And at some point I presume you need a car so you can't walk away forever.

The idea that you're an attractive customer if you'll pay cash is a 90s thing.

The lowest total cost you can pay for most new cars* is to put in a sizable down payment, chose a loan with a low-but-non-zero interest rate, then pay the whole thing off as soon as the loan paperwork shows up. This will always get you the highest dealer incentives (i.e. lowest number on the invoice) which get made up by the bank paying for the profitable loan. After that is buying cash, and last place is 0-interest loans (I guess technically last place is interest-bearing loans paid off in installments, but if you can pay cash that's not really a consideration).

There are always offers which are available to cash buyers/real loan buyers, but not 0% financing buyers. The reason for this is simple; 0% financing is a hack to get people to buy more expensive cars, and you'll discover that on the lower margin cars that option mysteriously vanishes.

I just went through this myself and helped two friends out, it's true for Ford, Honda, VW, Audi, and Chevy at least in the US.

* If you happen to be one of the few people who actually wants to buy a high-margin car (usually Halo cars like Corvettes) then sure, get the 0% financing. Just realize that you're being fleeced, although if you're buying a Vette you probably already knew that and value isn't top-of-mind

You simply don't understand how modern franchise dealers operate. Cash discounts are no longer a thing. Due to incentives they prefer to finance through the manufacturer's captive lender. The F&I guy is already sitting there in his office with nothing else to do and as long as you have a decent credit score the approval process takes literally a few minutes.

Sure the dealer will take cash if that's how you want to pay but you're not getting any extra discount.

Not my experience. I have always gotten the best deals paying cash, and threatening to walk away.

The key is to not get emotionally invested in owning the car before you actually own the car. A lot of people can't do that.

> Cash buyers are fools, unless you're really at the point of valuing not having a loan for moral reasons (maybe a German?) at four-figures.

German Ideal nowadays is to buy a house for a couple hundred grand on a loan that you finish paying off when retiring.

Yes, if you're going to cash buy, you can frequently get a better deal off the sticker price by agreeing to finance and then simply paying the loan off. How you structure things really depends on priorities though. Normally I buy the car (through financing) but right now I prioritized low monthly payments during financial uncertainty, so I leased. If things are different in three years, we'll either buy a new car or buyout the lease-- I made sure the lease buyout price was something we would be comfortable with: the TCO came out to only a little more than if we financed a purchase w/ higher immediate monthly payments, and I judged that a slightly higher TCO is worth the current ability to keep monthly expenses to a minimum.

I always separate trade-in and financing from the price. Deal on the price first then the trade, then the financing.

Trade ins are good for negotiation too. Wanted the factory extended warranty. Dealers in other states will discount the extended warranty but can’t sell in my state. Dealer wouldn’t discount the warranty to the price of the out-of-state so I had them keep it that price and up the trade in value to match it. They can show they didn’t discount the warranty. I get the discount.

They did that if I would get finance thru them, matching my prearranged banks rate. Deal made.

Went in the next Monday to the local bank and refinanced the car loan.

Also made them give me so thing for signing the arbitration agreement. Everything is negotiable. I did have to walk away but they called me back on the drive home.

Exactly - agree a sale price. Then discuss payment. And at that point cash has no benefit to the dealer, but a loan does. So the loan can get you a discount but the cash cannot.

It's actually the opposite. Most franchise dealers get incentives for financing through the manufacturer's captive lender, so you can often negotiate a slightly better deal by taking a loan.

One offer I was looking at recently was 0% OR $4k cash back off the MSRP. The interest rate on taking the cash back offer ended up working out to near exactly $4k. Though if you have good credit and went through a credit union you could probably get a much better rate.

You lose all of that and more on depreciation in the first two years.

I buy older than most people; currently my newest car is a 2009. I do maintenance and routine repairs myself, and I lose almost nothing on depreciation. But you can still come out ahead by buying 4-6 years old and letting the original buyers take the bulk of the depreciation losses.

For me the sweet spot has been 5 years old and < 60K miles, usually cars with that description haven't been run into the ground. Currently driving a mustang with 200K miles on it and it still runs like a sewing machine. It's harder now though, pandemic has really driven up used car prices, makes more sense to buy new currently, especially if you're getting something like a honda or toyota that holds value.

Not anymore.

Car market is a bit strange right now.

Check the price on your 2009 on eBay or craiglist. Is it worth more than you think it should be?

I don't think this is a blanket rule. Sometimes 2-4 year old cars can be the same price as a new car. This seemed to happen after the GFC crash.

Borrowing also means you have to carry collision insurance, the surplus value (over the expected payout) of which should also be considered a finance charge if you’d otherwise not carry it.

If you were to buy a car in cash for $40k+, would you really not bother to carry comprehensive insurance on it? Are there really that many people out there where a $40k+ oops just isn't a big deal, just go buy another?

I don't carry comprehensive insurance on my car. I drive a 2000 Honda Accord though, so the KBB value (and what they quoted me for) was only about $1000. I wouldn't carry comprehensive on that. But you bet if I've got $40k+ rolling down the road and in the elements it's going to have some insurance on it.

I've usually dropped collision coverage on cars when they get under around $15K. (All but one of my cars was purchased for less than this, often much less.)

If I had a 0% loan on it for some reason at that point, that meant paying off the loan to let me do that. (If you assume an 8% nominal return on investments, that means when paying off the loan would cost me under $100/mo.)

I think you should insure against risks that would be a substantial impact to your life and (generally) not insure against risks that wouldn't.

It would be better to take the car payment and invest that money. You can get a car loan for less that 3% interest, and you can easily make double that with low risk ETFs. Hell, you could invest your savings into a dividend fund and use that to pay your car payment directly.

Or save up enough that you can pay cash. I would think for the HN crowd it should be feasible. I think when you're spending money that's already in your account you make better decisions. Like you'll be less inclined to pay thousands more for an upgraded model with a bunch of superficial nonsense added

A savings account is just a way to burn money at the moment. Not recommended.

All modern cars have amazing new features. Air bags, reverse cameras, steering by wire, ABS, direct fuel injection, massively boosted turbocharged engines (on econoboxes!) and traction control as standard. My 7 year old car has all of the above and can park itself, has adaptive cruise control, and for $400 I added a 12” touch screen stereo. Compared to my last car, my current car outputs up to 20psi of boost compared to the 6psi of four generations ago. My current car has part time AWD that is just as efficient as my old mechanical always on AWD car of yesterday. I bought my car for under $20k. The car is worth under $10k right now. That is massive value available to everyone right now.

Maybe you could upgrade your car now for much less than you think, or maybe you only want the latest shiny parts. Either way you need to be honest with yourself, cars have evolved and stayed modern over the past 2 decades compared to any time in automobile history

Which car do you have?

I bought a perfectly ordinary second hand vehicle for £3k in 2003 (it had been built in 1999) which had ABS, air bags everywhere, direct fuel injection, turbo-charged engine & traction control. Modern cars are pretty amazing things: a lot of these features have been standard for twenty years at this point! (The vehicle I bought was much favoured by UK taxi drivers at the time, which shows you how very boring & practical it was.)

Since 2003 that has only gotten better. My turbocharged engine gets 35mpg on the highway while putting out 240hp on demand. 2003 cars couldn’t do that. my 2000 A4 with mods put out 250hp and had some sort of vacuum leak every other week, meanwhile that’s normal for my 2014 car and adding meth injection puts me as 300hp with zero problems after 2 years of continuous use

Remember when cars of the 90s were so much better than cars of the 80s? Going over 100k mi/km in most cars wasn’t a concern anymore. Now a large majority of cars are going 200-300k without a sweat

you forgot the most important thing. cas, one system (aeb) is required in european in 2022.

All modern cars have amazing new features.

Oh yes. Remote monitoring, tracking for advertising, contact list stealing through the USB charger port...

My cars have no such remote monitoring or tracking outside of government regulation (airbag crash sensor recording). Is this going to turn into an Apple vs Google phone style debate? Let’s stop before it gets there; Buy from a company that respects your privacy, but be prepared to spend more.

Also all of your other ten year old hardware probably has vulnerabilities you are not aware of as well

My cars have no such remote monitoring or tracking outside of government regulation (airbag crash sensor recording)

There was a time when people were worried about that as a privacy invasion. Even though, to access it, someone has to dig into the wreckage and retrieve the recorder. And all it yields is details of the last 30 seconds before the crash.

Maybe not always the good kind of amazing?

I tend to buy around 4-6 years old and run them for 10-12 years as well, which is limited by New England tinworm from the road salt we use rather than mechanical issues.

Beyond airbags and ABS (both now ubiquitous), I don’t need the new feature faff. I just need something that will start everyday and that I can do the basic maintenance on. Fortunately, that’s still easily available and cheap in the 5-ish year-old “those cars are too old to be reliable” mindset-driven market.

I can’t believe that people are willing to borrow money to keep driving 0-4 year old cars forever, but I’m glad they do because it greatly subsidizes the cars I drive.

I feel like each year cars get way safer. It started with blind spot detectors/cameras, and modern cars will even brake automatically and keep you in your lane (or at least warn you if you leave it).

Maybe new features like self-driving aren't as interesting, but I would buy a new car instead of a used one just for the perceived improved safety.

I don't know if there's any research showing that these features actually reduce accidents/fatalities though (plausibly if they malfunctioned it could be worse than nothing)

Many of these features add minimal benefit if you do some common-sense stuff such as, don't drive when you're really tired (or drunk, or on drugs, etc.); don't play with your phone while you're driving; don't read, do your makeup, shave, etc. while you're driving. IOW put your focus on the task at hand and you don't really need blind spot detectors. Of course the reality is that people are pretty bad at these things.

I found them invaluable, especially BSM saved me from a lot of near-crash situations. When dealing with fast deadly chunks of metal every % of reduced chance of death is a good investment in my book.

How many serious crashes or near-serious-crashes were you in in your prior cars without BSM? Assuming no other changes, that seems the most realistic measure of risk reduction.

You can’t measure the risk of a rare event like this. Accidents are (thankfully) rare events. There is too much variability with a single person. You can really only measure these risks across an entire fleet of cars. Rare events are Poisson distributed, which requires many observations to be significant.

So your question should be, across all cars, how many accidents have there been with and without blind spot monitors? Even then, it would be hard to control for all other factors (newer cars have blind spot monitoring, but are also safer in general, you need to compare similar years, traffic conditions, etc).

All of that to say — any single comment online is just an anecdote.

I agree. A scan of the research seems to suggest the risk reduction is bounded at around 40% on the high side of "potential risk avoided if all vehicles were equipped" with actual results of equipped cars coming in the range of 19-45% depending on the paper and type of accidents and aids focused upon.

Which is to say "quite meaningful", but when the absolute rate of serious crashes per driver is as low as it is, it's statistically impossible that driver aids are saving the typical individual driver from a serious crash multiple times in a driving lifetime, let alone multiple times since their introduction.

Another thing to think about is that “accidents” isn’t the only outcome that could be measured. I like my blind spot monitoring. But not necessarily because it makes me safer — I always turn my head to check blind spots anyway. But what it does do is make driving less stressful. Safety aids and driver assistance tools can make driving a better experience. That, in and of itself, is a worthwhile outcome.

I'll cape up for blind spot detection. My current car doesn't have it and I out-of-the-box I found that I had to move pretty extensively to see things that are to my 5 or 7 o'clock; even with my mirrors correctly positioned there's a gap between what I can easily perceive from the wing mirror and from the rear mirror and I had to buy blind spot mirrors to compensate. (It's much better with them.)

The car isn't even that long--the back pillars and back window are just weird (Hyundai Veloster).

Even people in good condition make mistakes and miss things. That's why airplanes have stall-warning stick shakers and pull-up alerts even for trained professionals.

As I understand it, the physical blind spots are getting larger in very recent model years as the car shapes keep changing. The blind spot monitors are partly a compensation for this, so you need to compare driving experience in these rather than with an older model where we easily drive without such electronic aid.

It's not clear to me how much of this change to the car shape is driven by competing safety standards, i.e. side impact and rollover protection, and how much it is the continuous march of fashion/stylistic tweaks.

Yeah, as you say, reality is far from the ideal. But I believe that even without those obvious problems, people still make mistakes and the extra couple layers of protection could save your life.

I was in a near crash without doing any of those things (night driving on a very fast road in an area I was unfamiliar with, and misread the shape of the road). I panicked and swerved without checking my blind spot (it was an empty road, or so I thought) and almost caused the other person to crash. More advanced blind spot monitoring systems could have largely removed the danger of the situation I was in, although obviously there is a lot that I could/should have done better myself. I think the next year's model had a HUD which showed blind spot status.

I don't have the data, but my car insurance is considerably lower as a result of modern safety features in my vehicle. My insurer has a large checklist of things which correspond with a discount, such as automatic breaking, cameras, blind spot sensors, lane departure alerts and steering, etc. In total it comes to nearly 15% for my vehicle. I suspect it means these things actually save my insurer money on average.

Which brings me to the point of common sense. Not everyone shares it, or uses it, and so these features are useful. We can talk all day about what people should or could do, but at the end of the day, it just isn't going to happen.

Haha, automatic "breaking". Whoops.

Most of the improvements are invisible. Better crumbing zones, better shock absorption, better composite materials. If you watch crash test of a modern car Vs 10-y old car, the later is significantly more dangerous. 20+ year old? Basically a death trap.

The number of deaths per 1 million miles driven hasn't dropped in the past 10 years so that puts a huge dent in your theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

Maybe, maybe not.

Those numbers include pedestrian deaths, which the same wiki article states "began rising in 2010, and exceeded 6,000 by 2018" (constituting a higher percentage of deaths in 2018 than in 2010).

If you subtract off the 6400 pedestrian deaths in 2018 and the 4200 in 2010, then you do see a drop-off in fatalities per hundred million miles driven -- from 0.971 in 2010 to 0.935 in 2018 (and even lower in 2019 at 0.925, as the raw number of deaths went down as miles traveled went up).

(Further, this isn't even considering other non-automobile occupants in crashes, whether that's bicycles or motorcycles.)

You don't need it, pedestrian need it.

We had a 2020 Corolla as a rental over Christmas/New Years 2019/20, and it was amazing. What we drive at home: a 2008 Ford Fiesta that my husband bought in 2013.

My only worry is that something will go wrong enough with it in the next year or so that we’d be compelled to get another car in this rather tight market, but otherwise, knowing that your car's current resale (and repurchase) value is approximately the secondary wage earner’s monthly after-tax income is liberating.

Next year will probably be better. The current shortage in materials and chips is a product of so many things (supply chains) getting mothballed, they'll be up to full production by next year.

> We had a 2020 Corolla as a rental over Christmas/New Years 2019/20

How does that work? Are models named for the year after they become available?

Yes, new models typically start being available around September: I always thought it was absurd too as a kid growing up, but it makes sense when you consider that competitive marketing pressures would drive manufacturers to release the new cars earlier and earlier. You can check the sticker somewhere around the driver's door to see when a vehicle was actually manufactured.

My current car is a little older. I pay a monthly car payment to myself, so when this car gets too expensive to maintain, I'll find a new car that costs what I have in savings and start the cycle again.

What do you consider "meaningful new features"? What about new cars "sucks"? They are more reliable, safer, quieter, more powerful, more fuel efficient and more full featured than ever.

We are in the iPod Video stage of individual car ownership.

Are you saying that the next step will be the best version of individual car ownership?

I sure hope so. I think car culture is bad art.

But to defend the analogy, iPod Video was iPod gen 5. Apple did two more generations on that format with the minimum additional feature set.

That might take a while. And there will be many a Zune sold in the meantime.

Can you elaborate a bit? I am quite familiar with the various iPods but quite unfamiliar with cars.

There are a lot of car enthusiasts here who can explain what makes new cars cool. You'll have to make your own comparison to iPod features from 2005.

I disagree.

Whether your into sports cars or fuel efficient cars, both categories have meaningfully improved over the past few years.

For sports cars, there's a number of 500,600,700hp cars on the market. Corvettes went mid engine (2020), Miatas lost 400lbs of weight(2016), Mustangs/Camaros/Chargers are now 460+HP (2018ish), a VW Golf R will hit 60MPH in 4 seconds with a 2.0L motor, and that's not even getting into Teslas.

For economy cars, a Rav4 hybrid gets about as good of fuel economy as a 2014 Prius, while being substantially larger. There are good hybrid offerings from non-Toyota brands, such as KIA. Plug in hybrids are pretty widely available. Even non-hybrids such as the Civic improved substantially in fuel economy in the past few years. In 2016, Civic fuel economy improved about 8% across the lineup.

For many auto makers, the transition from early 2010s to late 2010s came with substantial improvements. Not just in measureable metrics either. Transmission performance has improved so much between 2010 and 2020. It's really insane to experience a 2010 6 speed automatic, then compare it to a car with a modern 8,9,10 speed. The difference is night and day for most cars.

I'm sure people who pay attention to cars and their performance would agree. And I think many cars will sell.

But I think "meaningfully improved" is in the eye of the beholder.

Steve Jobs' one more thing for iPod gen five included the exclamation "calendars never looked better!"

You look at the slide he has behind him and it looks ridiculous. How useful was that calendar, how silly does that look now? What is the meaning of 0 to 60 in 4 seconds when there's traffic anyway? Isn't there a safer, less expensive way to get a rush than pushing a pedal with a foot?

I'm not arguing that these features you're describing viewed through the lens of today aren't meaningful. Breakout on iPod Video was cool too. But these improvements do not change the fundamental experience of personal transportation. They make it marginally better at best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyblf2P_q5Q

> What is the meaning of 0 to 60 in 4 seconds when there's traffic anyway?

I take public transit and don't own a car ($500/m parking, insane insurance rates in SF, cars broken into within minutes in daylight), but drive rentals/carshare-by-hour periodically. Merging and accelerating onto a freeway from a rate limited entryway stopped to 60 is somewhat useful while keeping up with flow.

Yeah, I'm tryign to make my dino car last until I can get a $40k electric car that will go 500 mile on a single charge running AC in the Texas heat. THen I'll run that into the ground for 15-20 years hopefully.

With brakes connected to the internet and useless touchscreens.

The issue is that supply is greatly exceeding demand. It also isn't constrained to Vehicles. Apple's Q2 guidance has said that iPads and Macs supplies have been constrained. [1]. Also, if you get reposessed cars that doesn't mean you will be able to resell them. Sure the automakers made a mistake in their orders for chips but since everyone is now trying to get foundries making chips and we are still having logistic problems with Air and Ocean freight no one really knows the answer to your question. [2]

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-29/apple-fin...

[2] https://unctad.org/news/shipping-during-covid-19-why-contain...

That's an interesting theory. Anecdotally, I occasionally pass by a lot where repossessed cars are stored. I've noticed there have considerably fewer cars in their lots of late, with whole sections completely empty. I'd guessed bad car loans just weren't being made with the pandemic, but this theory makes a lot more sense.

I like that you have this small visual indicator of vehicle repossession rates. If someone took sat photos and performed vehicle count on lots like this across the country that would be a quite an interesting set of data frames.

If might not matter if a person pays the rent, but people are definitely on the hook with both their lenders and their auto insurance providers.

It has also never been easier to recognize a vehicle marked for repo than it is today. Vigilant's (Motarola) DRN and MVTrac are mature, growing while the cost of new LPR equipment continues to go down.

When it comes to the repo man, It's never been a worse time to be in violation of a car loan or lease.

>> Since 14% of renters are behind on rent and evictions begin June 30, aren’t vehicle repossessions going to kick in July / August?

Americans will pay their car loan before their rent.

You can sleep in your car but you can't drive your house or apartment.

I think about this fact a lot considering the growing anti-car movement on certain parts of Twitter. Huge misconception about the value of cars, especially for people in America who don't live in extremely dense cities.

Something which doesn't need much maintenance, like a Honda or Toyota or something, is a lifeline. Fuel is still relatively cheap; modern cars are twice as efficient as similar cars from ~40-50 years ago. Housing has skyrocketed in that time compared to income. But a car is often a pre-requisite for many jobs. And with Uber/Lyft/door-dash, etc, a car can enable you to almost immediately get a modest job in most cities in the country. And it's easy to move to a new city if you have a car, as it functions as your own private room (even if you have to crash on a couch... or sleep in a Walmart parking lot). They also mean you don't need to rely on local 7/11 or delivery services for food. You can go buy in bulk, shop across town. A car gives you optionality and security. Wise or not, we've built our nation around cars, and now cheap used cars with affordable fuel are basically our main safety net.

Because of the eviction moratorium there are many who just stopped paying rent. And some of those people bought cars they are only able to afford because they aren't paying rent. Even with prioritizing car payments there will be many who fall behind on those if they start paying rent at new places.

A somewhat not intuitive fact: Most renters prioritize their car payments over other debts/rent. Without a car they have no income…

And you can sleep in a car, if need be.

"You can sleep in your car, but you can't drive your house."

Speak for yourself, buddy. You haven't seen my house.

And in many states, your car is one of the things that cannot be repossessed in case of bankruptcy.

It’s hard to predict, even if only a couple of months ahead. As the economy picks up a lot of people who had rent relief may have some sort of income, perhaps enough to push them positively over the line. Not all of the renters on relief, obviously, but perhaps enough to chop the number of actual car repossessions significantly.

Separately, I suspect that quite a few of the ppl who had rent relief had cars that, let’s just say, wouldn’t be highly sought in he used vehicle market.

> Separately, I suspect that quite a few of the ppl who had rent relief had cars that, let’s just say, wouldn’t be highly sought in he used vehicle market.

Perhaps.

Vehicles have been pushed in every medium as status symbols. Creative financing options and cheaper insurance have allowed those affected by this to continue to participate. It isn’t just new cars but expensive restoration and customization of old ones.

I think this is beginning to fall away, in part because young people do not rely on physical presence to gain and maintain social standing among their peers as much as they used to.

So a better phone camera matters more than nicer rims. Selfies in front of a fancy car get less likes than swimming next to a sea tortoise.

That said I think groups that have been economically disadvantaged over long periods of time process and integrate culture shifts like this more slowly.

Looking forward to major US regions becoming market-based economies again.

> Since 14% of renters are behind on rent and evictions begin June 30, aren’t vehicle repossessions going to kick in July / August?

> Presumably, due in part to eviction protection, they have been able to divert all or a portion of their rent payments to keeping up with bad car loans for commute vehicles that often will not be needed.

There are gonna be far fewer evictions and/or mortgage defaults than people think, all those ppl who have been out of work are likely making more money right now than they were at the start of the pandemic just from unemployment, additionally bec they’re unemployed they may qualify for their states’ Medicaid benefits and food stamps, not to mention the free school lunches than many states have turned into a basically tons of raw produce and other various meal-making materials delivered/picked up each week. All those extra benefits mean the raw unemployment dollars go farther compared to a normal income creating an effectively higher $/hr wage than if you just look at the $300-600/wk(+state unemployment).

All this distills down to the fact that everyone has been flush with cash the entire time so much so that I know a few people in March 2020 who were behind on rent but due to all the aforementioned benefits were able to pay the rent they owed. Meaning that people having been making rent and/or mortgage for the most part and have probably been living beyond their (normal) means for the last year. If there’s gonna be any sort of correction it’s not coming until mid-2022 at the earliest.

It is going to come sooner than that, people keep talking about inflation "coming soon" I think those people are blind because it is already here.

Right now if we just get off with a little stagflation that would be a blessing, unfortunately I think it is going to far far worse. All those people depending on government checks are going to get hit hardest by the combination of inflation and the required austerity measures

The economy is projected to grow quickly in 2021 though and even 2022 is projected to grow 3.5% which is still higher than trump's 2.5% average. The debt burden may shrink from sheer growth alone.

Trumps 2.5% avg which includes a global pandemic that all democrats decided required shutting down their economies for. I think context matters and those types of comparisons are dishonest.

Those projections are based on Modern Monetary Theory and Keynesian modeling....

Sorry to say I so not support either one of those economic schools of thought... Time will tell who is right

To believe we can just create from thin air 6+ trillion dollars in 18 mo's and plan to create 4-6 trillion more it will not result in massive inflationary pressures is a folly.

You might be right in the debt disappears, because people will be buying bread with figurative wheel barrow's of money as the dollar collapses...

grated that is the worst case, but these rosy predictions that everything will just continue on with no more than 3% inflation is lunacy at the highest order. We are seeing massive inflation in many market segments all being labeled as "shortages" for other reasons than currency problems. 400% in lumber,300% in food, etc. I submit it is not only shortages driving those numbers

I treated myself to a medium frozen yogurt yesterday, no toppings, after carrying a sheet of peg board about a mile. It was $8 after tip. Maybe that's small tourist town price rather than inflation, but all the restaurants in the area definitely jacked prices up 50% over the last two years.

I had to carry the peg board from the in-town hardware store because it wouldn't fit in my Mustang. A Ford Mustang has the same sticker price as it did when I bought mine 10 years ago. So, if there's inflation, Mustangs have comparatively gotten cheaper.

The peg board itself was $18 for a 4'x4' sheet. I haven't looked it up, but I suspect I could have paid 4x cheaper by area by buying full sheets at Home Depot. I would have paid the difference in transportation costs just buying the one sheet, though.

>>A Ford Mustang has the same sticker price as it did when I bought mine 10 years ago. So, if there's inflation, Mustangs have comparatively gotten cheaper.

I am not sure where you are getting your prices, in 2011 Base Mustang v6 coupe sticker was $22,145. Adjusted for CPI to official 2021 dollars that would be $26,076.

Base model 2021 Mustang v6 Coupe starts at 27,155, which is about 4% more than CPI indicated would be accounted for by official inflation

The difference is even more if we look at the GT500, which in 2011 was $53,645 which in official 2021 dollars would be $63,169 yet the 2021 GT500 has a sticker price starting at $72,900 a full 13% higher than inflation.

So please tell me where you are getting a 2021 Ford Mustang new for the EXACT same price as one would have paid in 2011??? Or you got massively ripped off 10 years ago... My current vehicle today has book value of about $1,500 MORE than when I bought it used 3 years ago (about a 1% increase in value), late model cars do not normally go UP in value as they age, but mine has in the last year or so....

as to the Peg Board, in my area right now a 4x8 sheet of Peg Board @ the local home depot is $25.. Definitely not $5 as you seem to believe, lumber prices (and peg board is in that) is up somewhere around 400% this year as there are MASSIVE shortages for building supplies of all types but especially wood based products

I think you're possibly reading more into my statements than there was. No need to be so confrontational.

Retail price for the V6 premium trim Mustang I bought was about $26000 retail. The modern equivalent I would say is a V4 with basic trim, because the 2021 base model comes with considerably more technology than the 2011 premium. The only practical difference is leather vs. cloth seats. The retail price for that car is about 27000. So yeah, I think you can get the roughly the same amount of Mustang today for the same price 10 years ago.

If you look at the V4 premium, then yeah it's about 20% more expensive than the base model which tracks estimated inflation. You're getting considerably more technology than the premium model a decade ago, though. It's a better car. Maybe not 20% better though.

I'm laughing about the peg board prices. You're calling me out with numbers, but it seems like you're ignoring the dimensions, and I explicitly claimed that my estimate was unsubstantiated. I just looked it up as well, and the equivalent quality sheet is $19 per 4'x8' sheet at the closest Lowes. I bought a 4'x4' sheet locally for $19. So, I only paid 2x. Seems like a high premium still. I wonder what home improvement stores pay wholesale?

>> No need to be so confrontational.

Not about being confrontational it about dealing in actual facts

I disagree with your comparison of a v6 premium to a Base v4 and calling it "the same". Also I think it is unfair to account for technology in the way you have, if we looked at technology in that way then we would have MASSIVE deflation in the world, as a $1500 computer 10 years go would cost $35 to buy a comparable processing power. Saying that technology has gotten better there for no inflation is on of the biggest problems I have with the CPI in general

On the Peg Board, I am not sure what "locally" is but assuming you live in a large city the cost of operating a business in the city can easily increase the prices that high compared to where most lowes are located which often have less taxation, lower properly costs, and over all lower expenses. I am not surprised a local hardware store would charge a premium for a product, convenience it worth something. Clearly you thought the price was worth that vs driving out to the Lowe's to get your sheet. The excuse of "it would not fit" does not work either as Lowe's would cut it down for you to the dimensions you need for free

I dunno, I think technological progress does cause deflation to some degree, and it's perhaps one reason why folk haven't perceived inflation as much as otherwise over the last couple decades.

Burritos, blue jeans and Honda Civics haven't changed much technologically over the years, and their prices seem to track with average inflation.

From a user experience, a $1500 computer from 10 years ago is still likely to be usable and able to run modern software. Buying a $1500 computer today is a significant upgrade.

Burritos on the other hand aren't changing, and yet they're seemingly 50%-100% more expensive than they were 10 years ago.

Is it not possible that certain markets are deflating while others are inflating?

Perhaps inflation and technological advancement is analogous to a temperature during a phase change in matter, i.e. there's energy going in but the temperature is holding steady. Maybe we'll soon reach a saturation point and inflation will start tracking again?

For fun I looked up a 2011 vs. 2021 Honda Civic. That's likely a much more apples-to-apples comparison. About $16k to $21k, or 31%. That's about 2.7% per year, which seems to be slightly more than claimed inflation as well.

That's interesting, I think. I suspect cars are becoming more expensive to manufacture over time due to more stringent regulations. Lower emissions, more active safety features, etc. Maybe certain raw materials have become more expensive as well? Or maybe NRE costs have gone up across the board now that electric cars are becoming mainstream?

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