The withering dream of a cheap American electric car

I can't believe that the average price of a car in the U.S. is almost $50k. For rapidly depreciating assets.

Here I am working out TCO costs for a range of mid-sized cars for my next purchase, and trying to decide if the extra $2k for a Prius Prime over a Prius will beat the differential in fuel costs for my driving situation. I feel like a chump, but I know it's the smarter thing to do with my money.

I coworker of mine just spent $100k on a regular old pickup truck that is planned to spend less than 5% of the time doing anything other than commuting him back and forth to work. It doesn't fit in any of the parking garages around here, or in his garage -- he has to park it at the other side of a surface lot because it doesn't fit in the normal spots. It gets like 11 mpg and uses the 92 octane fuel.

Americans won't buy cheap cars, they won't buy upmarket small cars, but they'll burn their children's college fund into the ground for a 2 second gain on 0-60 and bad ergonomics.

I can afford the fancy car, but I'd rather turn $100k into $200k in my index funds and buy an entire apartment in Spain overlooking the Mediterranean with the gains.

We can have nice things, but this is why we can't have affordable things.

If you're an American wondering why you're forced to buy shitty overpriced Teslas instead of those $15k BYD Dolphins, here's Janet Yellen screeching about how unfair it is that China uses its labor force to manufacture consumer goods instead of creating millions of bullshit make-work financialization jobs like good liberal democracies https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/yellen-intends-warn-...

I would never, EVER, buy any BYD or any car manufactured in China. Support local brands who manufacture locally.

Why?

edit: presumably you don't (or can't) hold this position for electronics or a myriad of other devices you already own. Why are cars different?

I'd totally buy a phone that was mostly US produced if it was the same (or better) quality within ~30% of the same price.

I do tend to apply this same idea to a lot of things I buy. If there's an American version available with at least similar quality and some % of similar price, I'll pick the US one nearly every time. Goes even further when its something I know is made in my state, even further when it comes to the city I live in. The vast majority of the beer I drink is made in the city I live in, for example.