“As automakers were profit maximizing during the supply chain crisis era, you are going to prioritize the bigger vehicles, the more expensive vehicles with their higher margins,” Tyson Jominy, vice president of data and analytics at J.D. Power, told me. “Now we just don’t have” these cheaper models.
We have a winner.
There's a bunch of free riders in the form of shareholders artificially driving up the price of goods.
Isn't this a natural consequence of capitalism in entrenched industries?
Did all the bad bad no good CEO's just read The Prince or something?
Which is why you don't put shareholders first in line for revenues.
The fact that most cars are priced at $60K doesn't mean cars cost that much to make, it means that the US car makers have decided to stop caring about poor people, leaving them to the used market while they go luxury, chasing ever higher margins from a smaller and smaller but ever-wealthier consumer.
Again, if safety or emissions requirements drove up prices, how is it legal for Nissan, Mitsubishi, Kia/Hundai and others to sell cars that cost under $10K in 2000 dollars when you couldn't buy new in 2000 for anywhere close to that? Just because Ford and GM WONT compete there doesn't mean competing there is cost prohibitive.
Higher interest rates and other inflation caused by profit-taking in other industries drove this to a head since consumers couldn’t just soak it up, but none of the manufacturers wants to be the first to lower their margins.