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Even when times are good, cars are what largely keep Americans poor.

Back when I lived in LA, I literally had a car salesman try to tell me I should be okay with an outrageous interest rate, because everyone can just refinance later.

There is an intense amount of pressure to not only own a car, but to buy a nice car so you can show off. For one, you're not going to attract quality people like that, and two the moment things go bad you'll lose that car.

I was able to reduce my monthly expenses by about 20% just by going car free, and I refuse to ever own a car again.

Owning a car is just this giant liability, but of course I'm rather limited in where I can live because of that. Much of America is just broken, there's no way to fix poverty as cars will keep you poor. You have a tiny handful of cities which both have decent public transit and are moderately affordable. One of these cities starts with a C.

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> cars are what largely keep Americans poor.

Which is weird, because (until last year anyway, when used car pricing went crazy) cars were by-far the cheapest major expense an average American has. Most Americans drive, in large part because the car is free money -- the drastic housing savings and occupational/educational/commercial opportunities more than make up for the small amount of cash it costs to own and operate one.

Just on rent savings alone, my car pays me to drive it. (The car costs me about $400/month in full TCO, but that car easily saves me $800/month or more just on rent alone, not to mention trips or kids school runs or visiting friends or shopping or so on). And that's not even factoring in that people's time has value, and any alternative form of transit easily double-to-triples the amount of time a given trip takes.

> I was able to reduce my monthly expenses by about 20% just by going car free, and I refuse to ever own a car again.

That sounds nice, and maybe it's just the midwest in me, but I've never seen a person who can actually save money by not-owning a car. Many people claim as such, but then you dig a little and find out they were already wealthy to begin with, which is the only way they were able to get away with it.

(e.g., "you should totally sell your ~$20k car, and with the money you save, you could totally move your family into a $600k-more-expensive half-the-size downtown condo and go car-free. You can just pay a small $50/trip for an Uber whenever you really need that car" -- like, it sounds nice, but the math here doesn't check out at all).

I mean, the math totally checks out if you can afford the real estate investment. And I mean that both in terms of assets and willingness/desire to take on the risk associated with real estate in [area].

Well, it checks out depending on the assumed return of the real estate vs. other investments.

The fact that much of the US and similar places around the world are scaled for car travel means this comparison between living with a car and without a car in such a locale is completely distorted. That is, yeah, I think it's the Midwest in you.

Cities often have a terrible public transit or pedestrian/bicycle experience because they were built for cars. The alternative is a completely different city and lifestyle.

From what I see on here, I feel car insurance is crazy expensive in the US. I don't know why, maybe same reason as lack of public healthcare?

I would make the argument that the supposed "cost savings" of owning a car are based on the structural requirement to own one based on American city design, along with hidden subsidies by the taxpayer.

Roads are not just funded by usage taxes like gas taxes and tolls, but also by general tax revenue.

"Aside from gas taxes and individuals’ expenditures for their own driving, U.S. households bear on average an additional burden of more than $1,100 per year in taxes and other costs imposed by driving." [1]

That means, if I don't drive, I'm still paying for the roads and other periphery costs as a taxpayer.

The second argument I'd make against cars enabling lower costs is the city planning argument. North America has basically ignored mid-density development in favor of a downtown core + sprawl formula, so if you don't want to own a car or if you want to drive your car less frequently you're limited to a very small portion of the housing market that mostly exists in high cost areas.

Building ordinances and zoning laws also contribute to this problem, with parking minimums for homes and businesses making car ownership a guarantee (i.e., if the parking lot is so huge that it's impossible to walk across you're going to drive).

Tokyo, for example, maintains a completely flat housing cost over time due to housing policies that encourage housing supply [2], and the Tokyo metropolitan area has much lower car ownership per family than the USA.

Finally, it's important to point out that the USA enjoys low gas prices through its currency being the main currency for oil transactions, its own massive quantity of domestic oil production, and rather influential foreign policy. Cars are cheap in the USA because it has the ability to make that choice, but at the same time that choice is relatively unnecessary and wasteful considering how the US is overwhelmingly urban and suburban (i.e., it has enough population density in the places most people live to support a less car-focused development pattern. Sure, people in rural areas need cars, but people in Secaucus, New Jersey need/have cars due to conscious city planning choices).

[1][PDF] https://uspirg.org/sites/pirg/files/reports/Who%20Pays%20for...

Disclosure: USPIRG is generally biased against highway expansion according to Wikipedia.

[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-housing-crisis-in-japan-ho...

Check out the numbers in Chicago - neighborhoods like Avondale, Rogers Park, Uptown, etc.

The tradeoff is definitely worth it.

Taking loans to finance a lifestyle well beyond your means is orthogonal to car ownership.

Used cars in the US are cheap, and outside the rust belt are also perfectly fine.

I've owned something like a dozen used cars in my life, most cost very little to own and operate, some even made profit when I sold them after fixing something obvious like a rotten ground connection. Through those years I learned how to repair and maintain the things which are marketable in-demand skills ensuring I'll never be unable to earn money - quite the opposite of keeping me poor.

Don't blame cars for stupid people making stupid choices.

Used cars are an unknown quantity these days: you just have the choice of buying from dealers (who might be trying to pull one on you) or buying from a private individual (who might be a scammer). Also, as cars become more complicated, DIY repairs and maintnence become trickier.

At least if you buy new, you know pretty much about what you are getting. It might be better for most people to buy new but keep the car for 10 years (i.e. never sell it as a used car in the first place).

> Don't blame cars for stupid people making stupid choices.

That is incredibly judgmental (like saying "poor people are poor because they are stupid").

> That is incredibly judgmental (like saying "poor people are poor because they are stupid").

Except I'm referring to stupid people, not poor people. There's plenty of ostensibly not-poor people making these awful choices living beyond their means, effectively in the process of becoming poor or just anchoring themselves down on a treadmill of debt.

Obviously there's a lot of pressure to live beyond your means, welcome to life in USA. Automobiles are just one facet of this ubiquitous phenomenon. But it's entirely feasible and practical to own and operate cars on a budget in the USA, cars are not the problem.

The problem I've seen more of throughout my life is stupid and/or lazy people unwilling to even get their hands dirty because they refuse to accept they're not rich and can't afford the luxury of not keeping a set of oil-stained clothes.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here, but the fact is that, as per the previous comment, this was framed as a trap for the poor rather than a more general problem. There is a lot wrong with the "poor people are poor because they make poor choices" trope, it is more like "poor people remain poor because they have to make poor choices" (the high cost of being poor being a popular article reshared on HN).

> The problem I've seen more of throughout my life is stupid and/or lazy people unwilling to even get their hands dirty because they refuse to accept they're not rich and can't afford the luxury of not keeping a set of oil-stained clothes.

Many people were never taught by their parents on how to do that and lack the resources to learn on their own. Many simply don't have the time to do their own car maintnence while shuttling off to various jobs and barely having enough energy at the end of the day to go to sleep. Does "stupid" mean lack of education? Does "lazy" mean lack of energy? Both of those terms I don't think are very useful here.

> Does "stupid" mean lack of education? Does "lazy" mean lack of energy? Both of those terms I don't think are very useful here.

Stupid and/or lazy people exist in droves, this is painfully obvious. I don't think it's useful to try pretend this isn't the case.

Once my car battery died, and I panicked. I don't work on cars, I literally had no idea how to even jump it. I had to watch a YouTube video, and get instructions from a local auto mechanic.

I was basically stuck in a car lease, and I have left my car sitting for about a month or so, only needing to move it to avoid a street cleaning ticket.

Not everyone is comfortable working on a car, and if you don't know what you're doing, this is extremely dangerous. For example, let's say you're not aware to never only support a car with a jack, if your jack slips, that could be the end.

I wouldn't call someone stupid for not wanting to take the risk of their $1,000 estate sell find stalling in the middle of the highway.

Plus let's just say you're poor poor. When I was much younger, I understood I could not afford both car expenses and rent. Luckily I was in a relatively transit friendly part of Los Angeles. So my 80$ a month bus pass did just fine.

Even if someone just gives you a car for free, you're going to spend at least $300 a month between gas and insurance in most places. If your incomes only $2,000, that extra $220 is going to hurt

I'm not saying cars cost nothing, they obviously cost some money to own and operate - but what they deliver in return is far greater than what they cost, especially on the dirt-cheap beater end!

In a former life back in IL I taught my GF at the time how to drive stick in a $250 Mazda 323 before even registering or insuring the thing. She then proceeded to drive this car to/from work and around town for a year before the engine and trans literally fell out of it (rust belt). The income from the job she drove to far exceeded the cost of the car. She took some safety risk driving a rust bucket, but you have to make compromises when you're resource constrained.

When I relocated from IL to CA for work I did it in a $500 Ford Ranger. This vehicle served as the bootstrap of a major life relocation. Eventually its brake line burst (rust belt), but that was long after the relocation was over and I was sitting pretty with other CA rust-free used vehicles already, with the truck mostly sitting around for hauling things.

From where I'm sitting used cars are absolutely amazing tools and their exceptionally cheap widespread availability in the USA is a feature not a flaw. Take advantage of it, get over your fears of getting your hands dirty or suffering some injury - you're smart enough to do it. But it doesn't matter how smart you are if you panic and shy away from the unfamiliar.

I'm glad that buying used cars has worked so well for you, but that's just not what a lot of people do.

https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/research/auto-lo...

This is more of a structural problem with how we set our cities up. There's no reason we shouldn't have quality public transportation, along with much denser cities. There's so much space just dedicated to parking, which could all be reallocated if we had better transit.

This doesn't even go into the needs of those medically unable to drive.

Then again, where is this magical place where you're finding cheap quality cars. I've only lived in expensive cities, so maybe I'm missing context

> Then again, where is this magical place where you're finding cheap quality cars.

These weren't quality cars; they were rust-buckets, I thought that was made clear. You have to compromise when you lack money, there's no free lunch here.

> I've only lived in expensive cities, so maybe I'm missing context

Poor people living in expensive places are self-inflicting suffering, and ironically for this discussion acquiring a dirt cheap car they can comfortably sleep in ASAP and escaping the expensive city is arguably the best way out.

From what I've seen, used cars haven't been as close to a good value in the US over the last 2 years. It takes a lot of years of depreciation to get a price significantly better than a new car, and if you drop $10k on a ten year old Honda Civic you'll miss out on a decade of fuel efficiency improvements, safety features, etc.

> you'll miss out on a decade of fuel efficiency improvements, safety features, etc.

So... those who can't afford the ideal miss out on things? [obvious]

I think it's another instance of the Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice.

Someone who can't afford a new car saves 30% by buying a decade old one. Except that old car is less efficient so they're buying 5-10% more for gas than if they had a new car. If you need a loan, interest rates are higher for used cars. The tires are crappy so they're spending $500 to replace them. The car has 100,000 miles on it so parts are worn down. Maybe you get really unlucky, and get in an accident that would've been prevented by a blind spot monitor or a backup camera. Maybe you get in an accident that would've happened regardless, but the older car doesn't prevent injuries that a newer model would've protected you from.

Pretty much all cars have been relatively safe since the mid-late 90s. We're deep in diminishing returns land with today's vehicles that have just kept piling on increasingly pointless crap making them heavier and more costly for little if any tangible benefit.

And you've ignored the substantial cost of comprehensive insurance, required by the lien holder when you buy a car you can't afford using rented money.

I agree for a lot of the better vehicles new is a better deal. The market insane right now so buying a car at msrp is actually a deal.

Used cars have gone insane in pricing so your end up with similar annual costs for used as new.

There's pressure to over-spend on everything. HN will justify it for some classes of products and complain about it for others.

The one guy who moves heaven and earth to live in a "good neighborhood" that's normally a tad much for his income would get accolades around here. The guy who lives in a trailer park but and expends the same effort to drive a nice car gets derided. I don't see the big difference between them. They're both just going "all in" in different aspects of their lives.

Try selling a house 10 years after you buy it.

Then sell a car 10 years after you buy it.

One goes up in value, often greatly, the other is nearly worthless.

>One goes up in value, often greatly, the other is nearly worthless.

The Toyota fanboys would take issue with that statement ;)

Personally owning and maintaining my own metal box on wheels saves me ~2hr per day over the publicly owned metal box on wheels. Even in Europe that would be worth it for just about any white collar professional.

Not everything has to be a good investment.

I drive junk but I understand why some people would rather sit in a really, really nice car for their commute. The way I see it transportation is just the cost of having a job. "Base" transportation has zero residual value. You can't sell a worn out shitbox for anything. You also can't sell a city bus or rail car at all. If you throw more money on top of the "base" A to B car in order to have something nice then you might get some value back but it's fundamentally a luxury expense. For my use case and for many people, the "base" car offers so much utility improvement over anything else that it's a) a no brainier b) basically pays for itself vs attaining equivalent standard of living without it.

They're usually tied together. Quite often it's the car that allows the person to buy a home and commute to and from work to this home. The car is very much a tool. It it frees up time (which can be traded for money), or otherwise opens up opportunities (like to live in a suburb and commute to work rather than taking public transportation which may be nonexistent or otherwise time inefficient) then it's an investment as well - it just returns its value not in money or intrinsic value of the car but in saved time, effort, and doors opened.

Not everything should be viewed as a financial instrument only.

Say a musician buys a trumpet, and 20 years later that trumpet has depreciated. The argument could be made that if he bought a house instead of a trumpet it would have been a much better investment. But how would he have played the trumpet his whole life then?

>One goes up in value, often greatly, the other is nearly worthless.

Technically the house goes down in value as well. The one that goes up in value is the land, not the house.

Some people overspend a lot on cars. Some people don't. I know a lot of people who drove 10+ year old Toyotas until they decided they wanted an electric car. Or who still drive 10+ year old Toyotas. Interestingly, some bought the car new and had a "drive it into the ground" mentality. Others bought them used. In both cases, their TCO for their cars averaged out to be quite low.

Even the people who bought new EVs seemed to get fairly good deals on interest rates. If you were getting high interest rates, you were probably trying to buy far too much car for yourself.

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