tax light trucks heavily unless the owner can prove they use it for business purposes, like construction or farming

Good thing China isn't ready to flood the market with millions of cheap electric cars. This short term profit is going to end up biting them in the ass real quick. Although I guess they know they'll just get bailed out, so there's no reason to innovate.

Oh hey almost exactly like the housing issue... Greedy fucking companies realized they made more making McMansions than starter houses so no one makes reasonable houses anymore and we're all stuck trying to buy 4+ bedroom overpriced shit...

There's no way this could be bad for society at large especially when driving is pretty much mandatory outside of cities. Nah, it couldn't be bad because it's good for corporations. Not that anyone cares. Externalities is just a fancy word...

Remember: can't afford life? Move to a low cost of living area and drive 2 hours to work! ....wait...

That's a lot of words to say "Cartel". Car...tel... get it?

I'm here all day, folks! 👍

Here’s a hint: the automakers are doing great. By essentially coordinating an industry-wide production cut, the pandemic gave manufacturers power to demand mind-boggling prices for fewer cars, leading to record profits. As consumers adjusted their expectations, executives saw an opportunity to establish a lucrative new normal. Low inventory is an “opportunity to drive strong margins”, GM’s CEO, Mary Barra, told shareholders in 2022. Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, went even further, declaring: “I want to make it extremely clear to everyone: we are going to run our business with a lower day supply than we have had in the recent past because that’s good for our company.”

Also see: collusion... market manipulation... fauxflation.

Oh hey almost exactly like the housing issue... Greedy fucking companies realized they made more making McMansions than starter houses so no one makes reasonable houses anymore and we're all stuck trying to buy 4+ bedroom overpriced shit...

There's no way this could be bad for society at large especially when driving is pretty much mandatory outside of cities. Nah, it couldn't be bad because it's good for corporations. Not that anyone cares. Externalities is just a fancy word...

Remember: can't afford life? Move to a low cost of living area and drive 2 hours to work! ....wait...

I've noticed this trend in other businesses, as well.

They've realized it's more profitable to screw over fewer people harder than it is to try to appease more customers with better deals. The most notable example of this to me would be the fast food industry.

It's a win-win, because they get to expend fewer resources due to fewer customers and they make more money with each transaction.

Fuck greed and anyone who supports it.

I’ve heard it said that Americans purchase based on the maximal use case as opposed to the typical use case. As an American, that description makes so much sense. As an example, I live in an area where there are a lot of hills and it snows rarely, but just about everyone who can afford a 4WD SUV has one. Heaven forbid they can’t drive around on those 1-2 days a year that it snows! Meanwhile, they get shitty gas mileage driving to work the other 300-odd days of the year.

I’m always blown away seeing these blue collar guys driving around these $50-80k trucks that probably get 8 mpg. How do they afford this?

Don't worry! Well make them all return to the office so that 90% of them are forced to commute via car. That means they'll have to buy one even if they can't afford it! It's genius and there's definitely no other way this can be done because otherwise they will miss out on all that important in-office interaction bullshit!

ones that run are in the high four digits, and the days of a sub $1000 running beater are over

Chrysler is probably only doing it because they already design their vehicles to be a huge pain in the ass to repair. I remember my buddy having to remove his wheel to replace his battery in his intrepid because the only access was via the wheel well.

I've also heard a story about Toyota where they would buy competitor vehicles to disassemble them and see what they were up to and they stopped bothering to even look at Chrysler vehicles because they didn't have anything useful to learn from their designs.

Chrysler dealership wants $450 to diagnose an issue on my 200. Local shop directed me to them because it was an electronics issue that they would need to repair. Not sure I would trust Chrysler either.

I just bought an old diesel Mercedes that I'm hoping will last me until the next era of car technology. I can't believe how easy it is to work on, almost as if it was designed to be maintained instead of to discourage the owner from doing so.

Currently it's had only 200k of its reputed million miles used up, so it has a long way to go yet!