The state of affordable new automobiles right now is bleak, y’all. Back in 2020, I did a rundown of all the cars left in the U.S. market under $20,000, and there were seventeen. I did another one last fall, and there were six. Now, because the Kia Soul has crept above the $20,000 line, and the Rio has been killed off, there are four. This morning I saw a tweet from Twitter dingus @GuyDealership (below) saying there are just 9 cars starting under $25,000, and because it seemed to agree with my already-established biases, I initially thought nothing of it. But then it started to eat at me. There’s no way this could possibly be true. Let’s look into it a little deeper.
Update: This list previously mistakenly excluded the $20,890 Nissan Sentra. It has been added.
Sometimes it’s good to challenge information you see in a tweet, especially when there’s no link to a source or further explanation. Starting with my standing list of four cars under $20,000, I floated through every automaker’s website looking at MSRPs of cheap cars, added everything between $20,000 and $25,000, and came up with the following list.
Admittedly, this still isn’t a very long list. I am old enough to remember regular everyday cars, like the ones here, selling for less than 10,000 American clams. Damn, shit’s expensive!