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The $25k car is going extinct?

(media.hubspot.com)
319 points pseudolus | 1 comments | 29 Jun 25 15:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source
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puzzlingcaptcha ◴[30 Jun 25 06:20 UTC] No.44420041[source]▶
You can still buy a new subcompact car (like a Renault Clio or Skoda Fabia) in Europe for under 20k EUR.

The more interesting question is why these cars disappeared in the US. And while many of the factors discussed here are true for both EU and US (inflation, interest rates, manufacturer profit margins etc) I am surprised no one mentioned the 'SUV loophole' of US regulations that effectively boosted the SUVs (off-road vehicles are classified as non-passenger automobiles with everything that entails, notably much less stringent emission standards) and made the small cars unprofitable to make in comparison.

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rmnwski ◴[30 Jun 25 07:31 UTC] No.44420471[source]▶
Also, the more SUVs are driven, the less safe people feel (and arguably are), accelerating the need to buy an SUV for safety reasons.
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amelius ◴[30 Jun 25 09:18 UTC] No.44421146[source]▶
On the other hand, if you kill someone in a traffic accident, you feel shit the rest of your life.
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CalRobert ◴[30 Jun 25 10:05 UTC] No.44421430[source]▶
I’m not sure, a lot of people seem quick to blame children for “darting” in to the road instead of accepting responsibility for operating a dangerous machine.
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potato3732842 ◴[30 Jun 25 10:54 UTC] No.44421709[source]▶
People lay the blame on children and their parents because if they choose to do their best bipedal impression of a deer there's really nothing a driver can do. One could be going 10mph and if a child darts out from parked cars at the right time you're gonna hit them. Heck, adults get hit by forklifts and other heavy equipment going single digit speeds all the time and even workplaces that separate traffic nearly completely don't eliminate them at scale.

Ignoring extremists is easier than preventing (or reducing to a point that you stop complaining) these accidents at the limit, so that's what society does. Tough luck.

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1. Der_Einzige ◴[30 Jun 25 15:02 UTC] No.44424210[source]▶
The average car driver is NOT putting enough active attention into their driving and could in many cases break fast enough to prevent the accidents that do happen. Furthermore, the average car driver has not been trained on how to actually handle extremely rapid braking situations. A lot of people are downright wusses about dealing with the "whiplash" of actually hard braking their cars. I'd even claim that over half of all drivers have not seriously applied their brakes at 100% at a speed above 20mph EVER!

Slow reaction times, of the kind that could be easily corrected by more strict laws around who and how licenses are given, are easily the #1 reason for preventable pedestrian deaths from cars.

This is a solvable problem and the Euros have far less of these stupid kinds of situations for a reason. I WILL blame most drivers who "kill children" for their laxidazy assumption that they can reduce their idle concentration just because "it hasn't happened to them".

Also all of this discourse is really arguments for requiring all cars to have active automatic emergency braking for pedestrians and other cars.