As much as the British government has and continues to mismanage the country, I think most of the issues in the car market are caused by the EU. They are the ones who have dictated the rules for the last decade meaning cars have had to meet ever tightening (and more unachieveable) fleet CO2 regulations, and safety regulations requiring a ton of sensors and systems to nanny every aspect of your driving. The british government has put the boot in though with the EV sales quota which many manufacturers are struggling with. Expect Toyota and Nissan to use their UK factories as bargaining chips to force the government to drop these rules like Stellantis have, or just shut them and leave Europe altogether.
The Euro NCAP is a bit of a joke too. The Dacia Spring sure isn't the safest car on sale, but a 5 star car of a decade ago wouldn't get top marks now, as the scoring system has been revised several times and puts a big weighting on collision avoidance systems and speed limit assists, which in the real world are often flawed and annoying, verging on the dangerous occasionally. I'd say it's a bit misleading. Although there's pictures and you can see how a car holds up, is Mrs Miggins going to look at the website, or hear that a Dacia Spring is a deathtrap and keep her 3 star 1999 Honda Civic instead? It does seem to me that Euro NCAP is an answer in search of a cause now. Passive car safety has come on in leaps and bounds since the 90's, but the big gains are got, and Euro NCAP (and other vehicle safety agencies around the world for that matter) seem to be searching for marginal gains and desperately looking for new innovations to keep themselves relevant.
There's still affordable cars in other parts of the world, and you don't even have to look at models that are specifically designed for developing countries and have less luxuries and safety kit. A Toyota Corolla's base price in Britian is, according to their website £30,505. In Australia, hardly a poor country, it's about $36,000. That's about £18,200. Same car, same hybrid drivetrain. So why is it 60% more here?
Excellent piece. Encapsulates what I have been saying to my car mad mates for a few years.
One thing that I would challenge is the catalyst for the exorbitant pricing. Automotive manufacturers have been complicit in the hike in prices, it's not just Government safety requirements. Paint and massive alloy wheels are 2 easy examples of how the industry has persuaded us that we need the look not just the function and neither have anything to do with safety.
On the brighter side, Cuba managed, although the mother of their invention was the US embargo, and I'm sure we will manage even if it is the retailers not a foreign government that ensures we mostly drive 50yr old cars. Toot, toot.
the distribution of the ages of the car fleet is also going to be an issue when there's an attempt to scrap the legacy fossil fuel vehicles - it's likely that many of the poorer families will be stuck with a shock change.
About 18 months ago, I came across a chart that showed the number of new car purchases via finance as a percentage of the total. In 2009 it was sub 15% (can’t remember the exact figure). By the time it got to 2019, that percentage had arisen to around 90%! Of course, that was in a low-interest rates environment.
Is increasing size really a requirement? My new Born, basically the same as the VW ID 3 isn't that much bigger than my previous Toyota Auris. And it's certainly not an SUV.
So I don't know which specific model you've got, but looking at the current specs - a Cupra Born ranges from 1,800 to 2,000kgs. That's literally massive - at the top end there's only about 60kgs between that and a Land Rover Defender from 2014. The footprint is comparable to the 2014 Focus but it's significantly taller, and it's about a foot longer than a Fiesta of that era. I think cars are getting so big in general now that you sort of do a double-take when you see one next to anything from 15-20 years ago.
Having the numbers is very useful. Our focus during purchase was almost entirely on the length. It had to fit on the driveway. But the car itself still looks and feels like a small car out on the roads. Though at a shade over 180cm wide it is bigger than the minimum requirement for an on street parking space.
We've got so used to cars not fitting in garages, but with the growth of the 2m SUV or those ridiculous Rangers we seem to be reaching the point where cars no longer fit on the street. Certainly roads have become two parked cars and one line of traffic instead of both ways at the same time.
Really interesting piece. A few things come to mind.
Car prices in the UK seemed to significantly spike post-COVID/post-Ukraine invasion, with what has felt like a large degree of profiteering by manufacturers. From average Fords to well-equipped BMWs, the price increased from 2022-2024 felt in the territory of 15-20% across the board. It would be interesting to see the year-by-year trend to know if it is a linear increase.
Expectations for amenities are way higher. Seeing aside new safety technology, I'd wonder whether Jessica's old Fiesta has power windows, a nice stereo with mobile interface, aircon, cruise control, leather seats, sunroof, rear climate control and so many other features that are now seen by many as required.
I wonder if cars are lasting longer now. Certainly the UK market has its share of clunkers, rust-buckets and more that meant cars didn't last for that long. (EVs are the obvious question market, given the long-term threat of battery depletion.)
Finally, car brands shift and change. Jennifer's basic Ford might be best replaced by a Skoda or Kia - good quality, affordable brands that will do lots of what she needs, but would've been seen very differently 15 years ago. The same as 15 years ago brands of mobiles or TVs or other consumer products were viewed differently.
The point about price is clear enough, but we're not talking about price. As other readers have pointed out, a 2020 model bought second hand is still a decent upgrade on a comparable 2010 model – which seems to me the more pertinent point about value.
There may be a sense in which the price of a new car contributes to a general declinist vibe among the middle class. But I doubt it. By the stats you quote, most people don't even think about new car prices more than once every ten years. Stagnating pay and the soaring costs of food, energy and accommodation are daily and weekly reminders that we're not getting any better off.
Did we vote for the price hikes? No, that's not how markets work. But we receive the value. Are we children that we should expect it for free?
Would we have voted for a political party standing on a platform of more death and injury on the roads in return for cheaper cars? Maybe. Probably not.
So I suppose I'm left wondering, specifically with regard to value... what's your point?
Essentially: at some point 'we' as a society decided we would double the price of cars in order to meet some new standard; but at no point were the consequences of that seriously considered or mitigated, at no point was there any real discussion about the value of it, and in fact it's unlikely that any specific person or body every really consciously made the decision or understood that's what they were doing. So a definition of value was just sort of... manifested somewhere in the corridors of bureaucracy, in a manner completely detached from voters or consumers and with no real possibility of challenge. And you can extend that to a lot of other situations, like bat tunnels on HS2 or why it costs a hundred million to build a footbridge - there's a sort of fundamental misalignment or disconnect where it's almost like the question of value is being determined by an AI in a basement somewhere.
And that's problematic because it makes it quite hard to interrogate some of these value statements and decisions - like no doubt cars now are safer overall than 20 years ago, but were all of the improvements good value? Was there any attempt to optimise safety for cost? Or did we basically just say cost was irrelevant since people could just go into more debt?
"at some point 'we' as a society decided we would double the price of cars in order to meet some new standard"
That's not really how prices are set. There are a number of factors influencing price. 'We', as consumers, make trillions of decisions every second, transmitted in aggregate as pricing signals. These in turn trigger more pricing signals between buyers and sellers along often complex supply chains. Tax and corporate financial engineering also play a part, as do inflation, commodity prices, geopolitics, trade policy, industrial relations and so on and so on. So if prices have doubled, it's not because 'we' decided they should in order to meet some new standard.
"...at no point were the consequences of that seriously considered or mitigated, at no point was there any real discussion about the value of it, and in fact it's unlikely that any specific person or body every really consciously made the decision or understood that's what they were doing."
That's not really how regulation is developed. The auto industry is a powerful global economic and political actor. Regulation is generally developed via a long process of collaboration and negotiation between government, academia, industry groups and civil society. Over cycles that run into years, matters of consequence are very rigorously interrogated and questions of value are contested at length by highly motivated and well-resourced parties with competing interests.
"And you can extend that to a lot of other situations, like bat tunnels on HS2 or why it costs a hundred million to build a footbridge"
You really can't. Not least because those two things are lazy tabloid caricatures that serve to illustrate nothing useful.
"no doubt cars now are safer overall than 20 years ago, but were all of the improvements good value?"
It's hard to say for sure, but you could ask someone whose life had been saved by one of the more contentious improvements. Or better still, ask their mother.
"Was there any attempt to optimise safety for cost?"
Again, it's hard to say for sure, but you could ask the car manufacturers, who employ thousands of engineers, data scientists, economists, actuaries, statisticians and so on to achieve an optimal balance between cost and risk.
Apologies that I seem to have lapsed into sarcasm. I think when I saw the reference to bat tunnels I realised that I've accidentally engaged with some bullshit. Will I ever learn!?!
"Regulation is generally developed via a long process of collaboration and negotiation between government, academia, industry groups and civil society. Over cycles that run into years, matters of consequence are very rigorously interrogated and questions of value are contested at length by highly motivated and well-resourced parties with competing interests."
Exactly, and the result of that was a 'decision' (in the sense of an output from a complex network of actors) to massively increase the price of cars. Now, it may be that you agree with that decision, and that's absolutely fine, but that doesn't mean the process of making that decision was a good one, it doesn't obviate the need to bring stakeholders like the public along with you, and it doesn't address the consequences faced by consumers and voters who rely on cars for transport, or mean that the actors involved were even aware of those consequences along the way. Nor does the fact that something could save a life mean we automatically have an obligation to pay for it - we have entire systems and processes in other sectors like e.g. QALYs in healthcare to determine what a reasonable balance of cost and benefit is, and to ensure that that trade-off is clear for each intervention.
I think I'm right in saying that Jennifer not only isn't going to be buying a new car; she's not the target market. The people buying new cars are boomers, and their cars enter the second hand market, as Ed says below. You can get a 2024 Fiat 500 with 10 miles on the clock for £11,498 (at Motorvogue of Norwich, if you're interested).
Boomers are not so stupid with their money as to buy a brand new car these days. The ones buying/ renting new cars are young to middle aged ladies from my observations.
Excellent piece - many thanks. I bought a new car recently and was shocked at how much they'd gone up in the last 6-7 years. I'd like to move to electric, but I don't have any obvious way of charging it at home; I live in a terraced house, no driveway, often have to park down the street somewhere. There are many in a similar position. For me, the lack of current charging infrastructure is a huge problem.
I realise that you've basically documented the subconscious rationale behind my last car buying decision from 2 years ago. Wanting to "go green" I couldn't stomach the £35K price tag for an ID3. Rejected my company salary sacrifice car scheme - £13K to "rent" a small electric car for 2 years. Ended up with a 4 year old (now 6) petrol engined small family car for £13K. Not exactly exciting and definitely not green but does what's needed.
And ironically a lot of the time all these safety features lead to bloat that makes the car less safe for pedestrians compared to a smaller, lighter car with fewer features.
With respect, this is not true. Regulations and Euro NCAP ratings give equal consideration to pedestrian safety as to driver and passengers. In recent years, and combined with more robust traffic enforcement in populated areas, improvements in exterior design and construction have demonstrably reduced the number of pedestrian deaths and injuries on our roads. NCAP pedestrian safety ratings have also recently been expanded to cover cyclists. Being smaller and lighter with fewer features does not make a car safer for pedestrians or anyone else.
I am a lot like Jennifer; similar age, earn near the average wage. This time last year i was driving a base model 2009 family hatchback (RRP £13k) and I upgraded to a second hand 2020 car (RRP £26k) from the same marque, though not Ford.
But i don't feel poorer. At least not in this respect, although there are plenty of ways that the UK economy makes me feel poor these days! As a non car enthusiast, the 2020 car feels impossibly swanky to me. Far from being 'inferior', it is better in every way. As you might expect, going from a 2009 to a 2020 model.
Things that car people probably take for granted - heated seats, a HUD, reversing cameras, blind spot indicators, etc etc, to us normies feel space age and luxurious, especially if we're upgrading from the 00's. When i press the button to open the boot from 10 yards away i still don't know whether to chuckle at how posh my car is, or worry that everyone thinks I'm a yuppie showoff. This thing is amazing. Android auto! Adaptive Cruise! Parking sensors! It practically drives itself!
I also intend to keep it into the 2030s. Not because of my concerns about EVs, rather because its good and there's no need to ditch something that works perfectly well.
So if anything, this car is one of the few ways in which I actually feel richer...
I partly agree on the swankiness - definitely going from 2009 to 2020 is a massive shift. I'd argue that ~2018 to 2024 is less so. Somewhere around 2018-2020 feels like a sweet spot for value right now.
That's quite likely, although the latter period is also only half as long. I wonder if, in 2029, the differences from a 2018 car will have accrued into something that feels like a big improvement again?
I agree with your point elsewhere about value more generally - I too find myself wondering how infrastructure projects can be so incredibly expensive - but I'm not sure cars are the best analogy for that, since govt projects are comissioned, procured and paid for without much public involvement.
Cars are much more market driven (obviously!) and the consumer determines whether the value proposition suits them (and given the amount of new cars we see around, many people are happy with it). There's probably an article to be written about how easy access to credit/finance has changed consumer behaviour and attitudes to debt, but I think that's a separate discussion....
Not just changes in consumer behaviour and attitudes – the growth in credit finance has changed the whole structure of the industry. Manufacturers and dealers can make more money selling financial services than selling just cars, which screws with traditional price elasticity and affects pricing behaviour. The old 'price goes up, sales come down' rule has become 'price goes up, overall sales stay roughly the same, proportion of PCP and PCH financed sales goes up... margins go up! Hurrah!' So within certain parameters, they're incentivised to set prices at the top of the band. (This also partly explains the 'bloat' some people have mentioned, as cars are loaded up with high-margin 'options as standard' to create the illusion of value. This (along with supply chain disruption, energy shocks, geopolitical instability, a two-year inflationary cycle (and/or price gouging) and Brexit) is why new cars are so expensive. Safety improvements and electrification not so much.
Very good read. There is also a component of car finance in that you are expected to understand a number of competing options where (and are pushed towards) you don't own the car at the end of the payment terms. This makes the car more "affordable" despite you actually only renting it with a (many thousands) deposit.
The other thing that my brother often complains about as well (as a licensed mechanic) is the fact that new cars are not built in a way that makes sense for common repairs. Like replacing a lightbulb requiring 2.5h work. Or in the case of Tesla, changing something that will need regular maintenance requires removing the entire battery as the first step.
Which is why you’d be lucky to find insurance for a Tesla less than £1,000 per year (£2k is common). Parts simply have to be replaced and not repaired. You’ll definitely feel poorer when you go from paying £500 to £1,500 for your insurance and also notice that the policy seems to come with a lot more restrictions
Yeah, when I was getting my car serviced at Jaguar last year they were struggling to get through enough vehicles for this reason, and had massive backlogs. Also because cars are so much heavier they need more expensive tyres, brakes, etc.
I think this is really important. Lots of people are going for PCPs now, and it means you can end up in a real hole if you have a change of circumstances.
As much as the British government has and continues to mismanage the country, I think most of the issues in the car market are caused by the EU. They are the ones who have dictated the rules for the last decade meaning cars have had to meet ever tightening (and more unachieveable) fleet CO2 regulations, and safety regulations requiring a ton of sensors and systems to nanny every aspect of your driving. The british government has put the boot in though with the EV sales quota which many manufacturers are struggling with. Expect Toyota and Nissan to use their UK factories as bargaining chips to force the government to drop these rules like Stellantis have, or just shut them and leave Europe altogether.
The Euro NCAP is a bit of a joke too. The Dacia Spring sure isn't the safest car on sale, but a 5 star car of a decade ago wouldn't get top marks now, as the scoring system has been revised several times and puts a big weighting on collision avoidance systems and speed limit assists, which in the real world are often flawed and annoying, verging on the dangerous occasionally. I'd say it's a bit misleading. Although there's pictures and you can see how a car holds up, is Mrs Miggins going to look at the website, or hear that a Dacia Spring is a deathtrap and keep her 3 star 1999 Honda Civic instead? It does seem to me that Euro NCAP is an answer in search of a cause now. Passive car safety has come on in leaps and bounds since the 90's, but the big gains are got, and Euro NCAP (and other vehicle safety agencies around the world for that matter) seem to be searching for marginal gains and desperately looking for new innovations to keep themselves relevant.
There's still affordable cars in other parts of the world, and you don't even have to look at models that are specifically designed for developing countries and have less luxuries and safety kit. A Toyota Corolla's base price in Britian is, according to their website £30,505. In Australia, hardly a poor country, it's about $36,000. That's about £18,200. Same car, same hybrid drivetrain. So why is it 60% more here?
Excellent piece. Encapsulates what I have been saying to my car mad mates for a few years.
One thing that I would challenge is the catalyst for the exorbitant pricing. Automotive manufacturers have been complicit in the hike in prices, it's not just Government safety requirements. Paint and massive alloy wheels are 2 easy examples of how the industry has persuaded us that we need the look not just the function and neither have anything to do with safety.
On the brighter side, Cuba managed, although the mother of their invention was the US embargo, and I'm sure we will manage even if it is the retailers not a foreign government that ensures we mostly drive 50yr old cars. Toot, toot.
the distribution of the ages of the car fleet is also going to be an issue when there's an attempt to scrap the legacy fossil fuel vehicles - it's likely that many of the poorer families will be stuck with a shock change.
About 18 months ago, I came across a chart that showed the number of new car purchases via finance as a percentage of the total. In 2009 it was sub 15% (can’t remember the exact figure). By the time it got to 2019, that percentage had arisen to around 90%! Of course, that was in a low-interest rates environment.
Is increasing size really a requirement? My new Born, basically the same as the VW ID 3 isn't that much bigger than my previous Toyota Auris. And it's certainly not an SUV.
So I don't know which specific model you've got, but looking at the current specs - a Cupra Born ranges from 1,800 to 2,000kgs. That's literally massive - at the top end there's only about 60kgs between that and a Land Rover Defender from 2014. The footprint is comparable to the 2014 Focus but it's significantly taller, and it's about a foot longer than a Fiesta of that era. I think cars are getting so big in general now that you sort of do a double-take when you see one next to anything from 15-20 years ago.
Having the numbers is very useful. Our focus during purchase was almost entirely on the length. It had to fit on the driveway. But the car itself still looks and feels like a small car out on the roads. Though at a shade over 180cm wide it is bigger than the minimum requirement for an on street parking space.
We've got so used to cars not fitting in garages, but with the growth of the 2m SUV or those ridiculous Rangers we seem to be reaching the point where cars no longer fit on the street. Certainly roads have become two parked cars and one line of traffic instead of both ways at the same time.
Really interesting piece. A few things come to mind.
Car prices in the UK seemed to significantly spike post-COVID/post-Ukraine invasion, with what has felt like a large degree of profiteering by manufacturers. From average Fords to well-equipped BMWs, the price increased from 2022-2024 felt in the territory of 15-20% across the board. It would be interesting to see the year-by-year trend to know if it is a linear increase.
Expectations for amenities are way higher. Seeing aside new safety technology, I'd wonder whether Jessica's old Fiesta has power windows, a nice stereo with mobile interface, aircon, cruise control, leather seats, sunroof, rear climate control and so many other features that are now seen by many as required.
I wonder if cars are lasting longer now. Certainly the UK market has its share of clunkers, rust-buckets and more that meant cars didn't last for that long. (EVs are the obvious question market, given the long-term threat of battery depletion.)
Finally, car brands shift and change. Jennifer's basic Ford might be best replaced by a Skoda or Kia - good quality, affordable brands that will do lots of what she needs, but would've been seen very differently 15 years ago. The same as 15 years ago brands of mobiles or TVs or other consumer products were viewed differently.
I'm struggling to see the point about value here.
The point about price is clear enough, but we're not talking about price. As other readers have pointed out, a 2020 model bought second hand is still a decent upgrade on a comparable 2010 model – which seems to me the more pertinent point about value.
There may be a sense in which the price of a new car contributes to a general declinist vibe among the middle class. But I doubt it. By the stats you quote, most people don't even think about new car prices more than once every ten years. Stagnating pay and the soaring costs of food, energy and accommodation are daily and weekly reminders that we're not getting any better off.
More importantly though, a discussion of value should surely take into account the value of the thousands of lives saved – and bodies unmutilated – as a result of these safety improvements. The stats are really quite impressive... https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f2e35ed915d74e33f4d42/rrcgb2015-02.pdf
Did we vote for the price hikes? No, that's not how markets work. But we receive the value. Are we children that we should expect it for free?
Would we have voted for a political party standing on a platform of more death and injury on the roads in return for cheaper cars? Maybe. Probably not.
So I suppose I'm left wondering, specifically with regard to value... what's your point?
Essentially: at some point 'we' as a society decided we would double the price of cars in order to meet some new standard; but at no point were the consequences of that seriously considered or mitigated, at no point was there any real discussion about the value of it, and in fact it's unlikely that any specific person or body every really consciously made the decision or understood that's what they were doing. So a definition of value was just sort of... manifested somewhere in the corridors of bureaucracy, in a manner completely detached from voters or consumers and with no real possibility of challenge. And you can extend that to a lot of other situations, like bat tunnels on HS2 or why it costs a hundred million to build a footbridge - there's a sort of fundamental misalignment or disconnect where it's almost like the question of value is being determined by an AI in a basement somewhere.
And that's problematic because it makes it quite hard to interrogate some of these value statements and decisions - like no doubt cars now are safer overall than 20 years ago, but were all of the improvements good value? Was there any attempt to optimise safety for cost? Or did we basically just say cost was irrelevant since people could just go into more debt?
"at some point 'we' as a society decided we would double the price of cars in order to meet some new standard"
That's not really how prices are set. There are a number of factors influencing price. 'We', as consumers, make trillions of decisions every second, transmitted in aggregate as pricing signals. These in turn trigger more pricing signals between buyers and sellers along often complex supply chains. Tax and corporate financial engineering also play a part, as do inflation, commodity prices, geopolitics, trade policy, industrial relations and so on and so on. So if prices have doubled, it's not because 'we' decided they should in order to meet some new standard.
"...at no point were the consequences of that seriously considered or mitigated, at no point was there any real discussion about the value of it, and in fact it's unlikely that any specific person or body every really consciously made the decision or understood that's what they were doing."
That's not really how regulation is developed. The auto industry is a powerful global economic and political actor. Regulation is generally developed via a long process of collaboration and negotiation between government, academia, industry groups and civil society. Over cycles that run into years, matters of consequence are very rigorously interrogated and questions of value are contested at length by highly motivated and well-resourced parties with competing interests.
"And you can extend that to a lot of other situations, like bat tunnels on HS2 or why it costs a hundred million to build a footbridge"
You really can't. Not least because those two things are lazy tabloid caricatures that serve to illustrate nothing useful.
"no doubt cars now are safer overall than 20 years ago, but were all of the improvements good value?"
It's hard to say for sure, but you could ask someone whose life had been saved by one of the more contentious improvements. Or better still, ask their mother.
"Was there any attempt to optimise safety for cost?"
Again, it's hard to say for sure, but you could ask the car manufacturers, who employ thousands of engineers, data scientists, economists, actuaries, statisticians and so on to achieve an optimal balance between cost and risk.
Apologies that I seem to have lapsed into sarcasm. I think when I saw the reference to bat tunnels I realised that I've accidentally engaged with some bullshit. Will I ever learn!?!
"Regulation is generally developed via a long process of collaboration and negotiation between government, academia, industry groups and civil society. Over cycles that run into years, matters of consequence are very rigorously interrogated and questions of value are contested at length by highly motivated and well-resourced parties with competing interests."
Exactly, and the result of that was a 'decision' (in the sense of an output from a complex network of actors) to massively increase the price of cars. Now, it may be that you agree with that decision, and that's absolutely fine, but that doesn't mean the process of making that decision was a good one, it doesn't obviate the need to bring stakeholders like the public along with you, and it doesn't address the consequences faced by consumers and voters who rely on cars for transport, or mean that the actors involved were even aware of those consequences along the way. Nor does the fact that something could save a life mean we automatically have an obligation to pay for it - we have entire systems and processes in other sectors like e.g. QALYs in healthcare to determine what a reasonable balance of cost and benefit is, and to ensure that that trade-off is clear for each intervention.
I think I'm right in saying that Jennifer not only isn't going to be buying a new car; she's not the target market. The people buying new cars are boomers, and their cars enter the second hand market, as Ed says below. You can get a 2024 Fiat 500 with 10 miles on the clock for £11,498 (at Motorvogue of Norwich, if you're interested).
Boomers are not so stupid with their money as to buy a brand new car these days. The ones buying/ renting new cars are young to middle aged ladies from my observations.
Excellent piece - many thanks. I bought a new car recently and was shocked at how much they'd gone up in the last 6-7 years. I'd like to move to electric, but I don't have any obvious way of charging it at home; I live in a terraced house, no driveway, often have to park down the street somewhere. There are many in a similar position. For me, the lack of current charging infrastructure is a huge problem.
I realise that you've basically documented the subconscious rationale behind my last car buying decision from 2 years ago. Wanting to "go green" I couldn't stomach the £35K price tag for an ID3. Rejected my company salary sacrifice car scheme - £13K to "rent" a small electric car for 2 years. Ended up with a 4 year old (now 6) petrol engined small family car for £13K. Not exactly exciting and definitely not green but does what's needed.
And ironically a lot of the time all these safety features lead to bloat that makes the car less safe for pedestrians compared to a smaller, lighter car with fewer features.
With respect, this is not true. Regulations and Euro NCAP ratings give equal consideration to pedestrian safety as to driver and passengers. In recent years, and combined with more robust traffic enforcement in populated areas, improvements in exterior design and construction have demonstrably reduced the number of pedestrian deaths and injuries on our roads. NCAP pedestrian safety ratings have also recently been expanded to cover cyclists. Being smaller and lighter with fewer features does not make a car safer for pedestrians or anyone else.
I feel you're over egging this a bit.
I am a lot like Jennifer; similar age, earn near the average wage. This time last year i was driving a base model 2009 family hatchback (RRP £13k) and I upgraded to a second hand 2020 car (RRP £26k) from the same marque, though not Ford.
But i don't feel poorer. At least not in this respect, although there are plenty of ways that the UK economy makes me feel poor these days! As a non car enthusiast, the 2020 car feels impossibly swanky to me. Far from being 'inferior', it is better in every way. As you might expect, going from a 2009 to a 2020 model.
Things that car people probably take for granted - heated seats, a HUD, reversing cameras, blind spot indicators, etc etc, to us normies feel space age and luxurious, especially if we're upgrading from the 00's. When i press the button to open the boot from 10 yards away i still don't know whether to chuckle at how posh my car is, or worry that everyone thinks I'm a yuppie showoff. This thing is amazing. Android auto! Adaptive Cruise! Parking sensors! It practically drives itself!
I also intend to keep it into the 2030s. Not because of my concerns about EVs, rather because its good and there's no need to ditch something that works perfectly well.
So if anything, this car is one of the few ways in which I actually feel richer...
I partly agree on the swankiness - definitely going from 2009 to 2020 is a massive shift. I'd argue that ~2018 to 2024 is less so. Somewhere around 2018-2020 feels like a sweet spot for value right now.
That's quite likely, although the latter period is also only half as long. I wonder if, in 2029, the differences from a 2018 car will have accrued into something that feels like a big improvement again?
I agree with your point elsewhere about value more generally - I too find myself wondering how infrastructure projects can be so incredibly expensive - but I'm not sure cars are the best analogy for that, since govt projects are comissioned, procured and paid for without much public involvement.
Cars are much more market driven (obviously!) and the consumer determines whether the value proposition suits them (and given the amount of new cars we see around, many people are happy with it). There's probably an article to be written about how easy access to credit/finance has changed consumer behaviour and attitudes to debt, but I think that's a separate discussion....
Not just changes in consumer behaviour and attitudes – the growth in credit finance has changed the whole structure of the industry. Manufacturers and dealers can make more money selling financial services than selling just cars, which screws with traditional price elasticity and affects pricing behaviour. The old 'price goes up, sales come down' rule has become 'price goes up, overall sales stay roughly the same, proportion of PCP and PCH financed sales goes up... margins go up! Hurrah!' So within certain parameters, they're incentivised to set prices at the top of the band. (This also partly explains the 'bloat' some people have mentioned, as cars are loaded up with high-margin 'options as standard' to create the illusion of value. This (along with supply chain disruption, energy shocks, geopolitical instability, a two-year inflationary cycle (and/or price gouging) and Brexit) is why new cars are so expensive. Safety improvements and electrification not so much.
Very good read. There is also a component of car finance in that you are expected to understand a number of competing options where (and are pushed towards) you don't own the car at the end of the payment terms. This makes the car more "affordable" despite you actually only renting it with a (many thousands) deposit.
Good point, and massively increases the cost of purchase - that £30k is probably £35k on finance, but feels less because it’s spread out.
The other thing that my brother often complains about as well (as a licensed mechanic) is the fact that new cars are not built in a way that makes sense for common repairs. Like replacing a lightbulb requiring 2.5h work. Or in the case of Tesla, changing something that will need regular maintenance requires removing the entire battery as the first step.
Which is why you’d be lucky to find insurance for a Tesla less than £1,000 per year (£2k is common). Parts simply have to be replaced and not repaired. You’ll definitely feel poorer when you go from paying £500 to £1,500 for your insurance and also notice that the policy seems to come with a lot more restrictions
A new Tesla from April 2025 will command road tax of £600. Let’s pile it on !
Yeah, when I was getting my car serviced at Jaguar last year they were struggling to get through enough vehicles for this reason, and had massive backlogs. Also because cars are so much heavier they need more expensive tyres, brakes, etc.
I think this is really important. Lots of people are going for PCPs now, and it means you can end up in a real hole if you have a change of circumstances.