alt Hacker NewsMost people don't buy new cars, they buy used cars. Particularly in the bottom 45%, they know they can't afford a new car - they might look at them but they know they know it is a dream (or the car they will buy in 5 years). Car makers know they can only charge this price for a new car because in 3 years it will still have a lot of value left - most new car buyers never pay the full price: they only pay the difference between the cost and the value in 3 years (plus interest).
Time was, CAFE forced Detroit to build affordable cars which folks could buy new --- rather miss that --- that said, I'm never going to buy an all-electronic vehicle w/ multiple screens (still annoyed about the radio on my current vehicle going out) GPS tracking and built-in monitoring by way of a backup camera and so forth.