Comment by thelastgallon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thelastgallon | Hacker News Reader

Buying a beat-up used car is risky. They are cheap for a reason, they have repairs that cost thousands. And cascading repairs, you don't know what else is wrong until the first problem is fixed, and the first problem itself is $3000 - $5000. The article has anecdotes that worked out for some people, but it doesn't work out for most people. It is like buying a lottery ticket.

Buying a new cheap car is the safest, and I'm sure there are always some models available under 20K.

Poor people (or even non-poor people) can buy the cheapest transportation available. US used to have the cheapest cars in the world. Its completely changed now, all you need to do is to ask your administrators to let the manufacturers from China bring them in.

1) They can buy a cheap car that will cost nothing in fuel. This is the worlds cheapest SOLAR CAR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk6aTKV-des

2) They can buy EV KEI cars (https://insideevs.com/news/807141/byd-racco-kei-driven-japan...)

3) They can ask for biking trials to be built. Atlanta seems to have built many miles of connected trials.

4) EV Golf carts are a perfectly acceptable form of transportation: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-golf-cart-kingdom/

Ask your admin to allow cheap cars/KEI/golf and work with your local city to build walk/bike/golf-cart trials. Its a one time cost, you can make transportation cheap permanently.

> I'm sure there are always some models available under 20K

Since you are sure, can you name a few?

You can't because none exist. There are no new cars in the USA for less than 20K.

The alternatives offered here are nonsensical. Where in the US does one buy this youtube solar car or KEI cars? Nowhere, that is where. They are not sold in the USA.

Golf carts are legal on hardly any roads so that is another non-starter unless you live in a neigborhood where they are allowed and never plan to go anywhere outside of it.

Cycling is great, that is the only practical suggestion on the list. But of course a bike is not a car so if someone actually needs a car, a bike is not a car.

For anyone poor who needs cheap transportation, old beater cars are the best.

Don't have to be poor either, for anyone who doesn't want to throw good money away at depreciation, old cars are the best deal. As an engineer in Silicon Valley I could technically afford many kinds of expensive cars but I've yet to ever spend more than 20K on any car or truck. Buy used, keep forever, that's the best.

> Since you are sure, can you name a few?

https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/spt-new-cars-under-20k

This link does now show a single new 2026 model car under 20K, what is the point?

That link shows results in your area.

In my area it does show 1 2025 Nissan Versa allegedly for sale at about $19k.

If that is being sold as new, it is a leftover model that has been sitting in the dealer lot for a year or so, depreciated accordingly.

A quick search shows me a bunch of 2025 Nissan Versas for sale between 16K-17K, so someone buying this dealer leftover for 19K gets an instant depreciation of ~2.5K.

It's also ~$19k more than anyone should spend on a Nissan Versa.

> Buying a new cheap car is the safest

There is no such thing as a new cheap car.

Not in the US, anyway. Outside the US, there are loads of them. You can buy a brand new car for about $3,500 in India: https://www.marutisuzuki.com/arena/s-presso

What's interesting is other items, like food or housing, are also much cheaper in India.

There are a few reasons for that.

First, the cost of labor is very low.

Second, with the exception of food, you get what you pay for. The housing is of poor quality compared to what you get in the west—it’d never pass inspection there. Everything is made with cheap materials. The cars are just decent enough but also aren’t salable in the west—they wouldn’t meet crash safety standards (no airbags, insufficient bumpers, etc.). Think 1970s-80s econobox.

Third, the government is more than willing to allow increased housing density. Towers are popping up everywhere. But the transportation infrastructure is still terrible, traffic is congested, and commutes are long. It can take over an hour to move 10km there.

> The housing is of poor quality compared to what you get in the west—it’d never pass inspection there. Everything is made with cheap materials.

All the houses are built with concrete. They are pretty much indestructible. You could say India has the worst products/services in the world, but housing might not be one of them.

> The cars are just decent enough but also aren’t salable in the west—they wouldn’t meet crash safety standards (no airbags, insufficient bumpers, etc.). Think 1970s-80s econobox.

Mahindra is selling cars in Australia: https://www.mahindra.com.au/

> Third, the government is more than willing to allow increased housing density. Towers are popping up everywhere. But the transportation infrastructure is still terrible, traffic is congested, and commutes are long. It can take over an hour to move 10km there.

Spot on!

Mahindra is selling cars in Australia but they’re not the same models sold in India. Same names but different specs.

Fair enough that the housing is made from concrete but the quality is still pretty poor. The foundations are uneven, as are the floors. The doors, windows, flooring, plumbing fixtures, etc. are, for the most part, cheap junk. The same is happening all around the world as builders race to the bottom, but India was pretty far down there. They’re in good company though; the same is true of all poorer nations.

Poor people can't afford a new $13K car. EVs also make less sense if you live in an apartment.

Agreed, and thats why we have the boots theory.

The Poor Man’s Shoe Theory, widely known as the Sam Vimes “Boots” Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness, is a concept that explains how those who are poor often end up spending more in the long run because they can’t afford to make quality purchases up front. This idea was popularized by Terry Pratchett, the acclaimed British writer, in his 1993 Discworld novel Men at Arms, through a passage in which the character Captain Sam Vimes observes the realities of poverty and consumption.

“Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.”

“But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”

https://footwearmagazine.com/poor-man-shoe-theory-poverty-co...

I don't even think the cheap used cars are a more expensive way to live on average. If you get unlucky or scammed, sure.

Nobody is selling you a used Lexus or Toyota or Honda for cheap. It is usually a nondescript brand and model, like a geo metro or a model with known reliability issues.

Everything known can be sorted out.

Buying a Lexus would be a very stupid idea. You don't buy a luxury/premium model for cheap. Way too much gimmicky stuff/gadgets that can break and parts price are way too high.

When you buy sub $2000 car, you look for models that were already in the relatively affordable range and have been best sellers of their category: good knowledge from mechanics, good and affordable spare parts availability.

A Lexus is just a Toyota with nicer materials on the inside. They use Toyota parts that cost Toyota prices, they aren’t out to gouge you on parts like European manufacturers. Sometimes Lexus vehicles are cheaper than a similar Toyota, a Lexus GX460 costs less than a similar vintage Toyota 4Runner or Toyota Landcruiser.

Lexus and Acura are the only luxury brands that are actually reliable, though they're not exactly luxury.

And nobody is selling a new Toyota for a non-expensive price. The cheapest new cars are brands without reputations.

I'd dispute buying a new car is cheapest, having bought a number of cheap and one new car. The cheapest is probably a basic reliable model, about 15 years old. Toyota corolla type stuff. If something does pack up you can usually fix them quite cheap. My ~$700 corolla hardly cost anything to run and lasted about six years before needing scrapping.

New cars are nice - shiny and reliable but you pay a bit. It can also be risky from the financial point of view if you buy on credit.

A tip for buying cheap ones is buy off someone wealthy who doesn't care about the money from the old car and would otherwise get like $0 from a dealer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com