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The $25k car is going extinct?

(media.hubspot.com)
319 points pseudolus | 4 comments | 29 Jun 25 15:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.826s | source
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aorloff ◴[30 Jun 25 01:46 UTC] No.44418386[source]▶
Nobody else has said it so I guess I will.

The reason the US car industry does not want a $25k car is that the financing opportunities are crap for a car of this low cost.

In the same way that airlines exist to offer you a miles based credit card, the US car dealerships survive by offering you a loan for the car. Or perhaps, a car to go with your structured finance opportunity.

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SoftTalker ◴[30 Jun 25 03:11 UTC] No.44418924[source]▶
Buy the best used car you can afford for cash and forget all that dealership nonsense
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dyauspitr ◴[30 Jun 25 05:21 UTC] No.44419696[source]▶
It depends. It doesn’t make sense to not get a car you can afford for 0% interest. I could have outright paid for my current vehicle but over the 3 years at 0% interest I earn 6% to make a few thousand over the lifetime of the loan.
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1. namdnay ◴[30 Jun 25 07:23 UTC] No.44420428[source]▶
> It doesn’t make sense to not get a car you can afford for 0% interest.

The loan might be 0% interest, but you're still using that loan to pay way too much money for a depreciating asset.

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2. tshaddox ◴[30 Jun 25 08:13 UTC] No.44420726[source]▶
I assume the comment you quoted means “a car you could afford to pay cash for, but will instead invent the total cost while making payments on the 0% interest loan.”
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3. namdnay ◴[30 Jun 25 09:50 UTC] No.44421330[source]▶
I think the problem here is "you can afford" vs "you can pay for"

if you're willing to spend the time and effort doing interest rate arbitrage for a few hundred dollars, maybe you can pay for a certain car, but i'm really not sure you should be

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4. dyauspitr ◴[01 Jul 25 04:24 UTC] No.44430578{3}[source]▶
It’s more than a few hundred. On my current vehicle- $60k, 0% interest for 72 months I make $10,000 over the lifetime of the loan at 6%.