> Cars were more affordable though.

Eehhhh... I really don't think that's true.

First, adjusted for inflation, new car prices really aren't that different than they were 10-30-50-70 years ago. You have to compare like for like, no cheating comparing a modern luxury car to Ford Pinto. For example the cheapest car in 1970 cost about $2000, with no frills like a radio, passenger wing mirror or floor matts. That's equivalent to about $17000 today. A base Nissan Versa today starts at $18000, yet includes power windows and an A/C.

Second, the maintenance requirements today are much, much lower than in the past. There's a whole list of expensive stuff you just don't have to think about with modern cars until long after those old cars would be at the junk yard (chassis lube, spark plugs, spark plug wires, carb and distributor, wheel bearings etc). That's a lot of labor you don't pay for, to say nothing of the parts!

Third, despite being heavier, more convenient and safer, modern cars have lower fuel consumption. Coming back to our Pinto vs Versa example, the Versa gets at least 50% better fuel economy.

Fourth, cars today just last longer. It used to be a minor miracle when a wasn't rusted out after 10 years or the engine still ran after 100k miles. Today, your car might be still under warranty at that point.

> Why do people try to deny this obvious reality?

Because it is not at all obvious that that is, in fact, reality. It doesn't help to complain about easily-disprovable things like the affordability of cars.

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lp4v4n 4 hours ago | parent [-]

>Because it is not at all obvious that that is, in fact, reality. It doesn't help to complain about easily-disprovable things like the affordability of cars.

Well you can just search "why are cars so expensive" and then you will find dozens of articles like the one below. I'm not American but I have the impression that cars were a kind of milestone in the life of young people in the past and this disappeared due to affordability. How much does it cost to live in a van nowadays? Can a part time fast food worker afford it?

I don't like this hedonistic argument that you used, it sounds like cheating, you risk sounding like the GP saying that houses today that nobody can afford are in fact cheaper because they are less likely to catch fire.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/buying/why-owning-a-car-is-g...

	▲	tzs 26 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		If you compare similar widely sold cars across decades prices are fairly level in constant dollars in the US, at least in the low to maybe mid range. For example when I was buying a new car a little under a year ago I looked at 2025 models of some of my earlier cars. A 2025 Nissan Sentra was pretty similar in constant dollars to my 1982 Datsun Sentra. A 2025 Honda Civic was pretty close to my 1989 Civic. A 2025 Honda CR-V was pretty close to my 2006 CR-V. The average new car price now is quite a bit higher in constant dollars than the average new car price decades ago, but that is because preferences have shifted to cars that are at more expensive places in the lineup. My 2006 CR-V for example was more than my 1989 Civic in constant dollars, but CR-Vs are at a higher price point that Civics. If I had gotten another Civic in 2006 it would have been about the same as my 1989 Civic.
	▲	JamesBarney 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The American media writes articles about what gets clicks not what is true. If you don't believe the enormous amount of freely available data on the internet. I am American, I had grandparents who were American. Poverty was a whole different beast in the 1930's compared to today.