Hammer Time: The Sweet Spot
We used to call it 60-80. You could buy a two-year-old used car with 80 percent of it’s life left for 60 percent of the new car price. Then, as Detroit & Co. started to overproduce ad nauseam, the ratio went down to 50/80. Then 40/80. These days you can pretty much buy a decent two-year-old car (think discontinued Ford, Mercury & Buick models) for about 35 percent of it’s new car price without dickering too hard. So, is that the sweet spot in today’s market? Nope. At least not for the non-enthusiast. The biggest bang for your buck lingers a little further down the curve. Specifically the five to six-year-old commuter vehicle with about 75k miles that has become as popular as an old can of buckwheat. Think Ford Taurus, Buick Regal/Century/LeSabre, Mercury Sable and virtually anything with the name Oldsmobile on it. Sure these are the equivalent of leisure suits for the self-effacing car snob. But I’d be damned if they aren’t the best deals for those who, in Rhett Butler-speak, “Frankly, don’t give a damn.”
Manheim Auctions currently estimates the retail value of a 2002 Ford Taurus SE with 75k miles right at $3100. I would say it’s closer to $3500. But even so, your mom or music teacher would still have a vehicle that can go another 10 years and 120k… so long as it’s well maintained and conservatively driven. A ‘mom & pop’ car if you will. Depreciation works out to about $20 a month. Ironically, the same exact price I pay to have my garbage hauled.
Insurance for these cars is also dirt cheap, since the only way these types of cars will be ‘Gone in 30 seconds’ is if Mayor Bloomberg or Rick Wagoner become president in 2012. Maintenance and parts are also very reasonable; their makers cranked-out a billion engines and transmissions. Finally, your mom or music teacher should be able to invest the $5000 to $7000 saved in something that will deliver a reasonable return over ten years. Perhaps a pawn shop specifically for musicians, or dual citizenship in a country that doesn’t debt itself to death. I’m thinking Costa Rica.
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- Jalop1991 In a manner similar to PHEV being the correct answer, I declare RPVs to be the correct answer here.We're doing it with certain aircraft; why not with cars on the ground, using hardware and tools like Telsa's "FSD" or GM's "SuperCruise" as the base?Take the local Uber driver out of the car, and put him in a professional centralized environment from where he drives me around. The system and the individual car can have awareness as well as gates, but he's responsible for the driving.Put the tech into my car, and let me buy it as needed. I need someone else to drive me home; hit the button and voila, I've hired a driver for the moment. I don't want to drive 11 hours to my vacation spot; hire the remote pilot for that. When I get there, I have my car and he's still at his normal location, piloting cars for other people.The system would allow for driver rest period, like what's required for truckers, so I might end up with multiple people driving me to the coast. I don't care. And they don't have to be physically with me, therefore they can be way cheaper.Charge taxi-type per-mile rates. For long drives, offer per-trip rates. Offer subscriptions, including miles/hours. Whatever.(And for grins, dress the remote pilots all as Johnnie.)Start this out with big rigs. Take the trucker away from the long haul driving, and let him be there for emergencies and the short haul parts of the trip.And in a manner similar to PHEVs being discredited, I fully expect to be razzed for this brilliant idea (not unlike how Alan Kay wasn't recognized until many many years later for his Dynabook vision).
- B-BodyBuick84 Not afraid of AV's as I highly doubt they will ever be %100 viable for our roads. Stop-and-go downtown city or rush hour highway traffic? I can see that, but otherwise there's simply too many variables. Bad weather conditions, faded road lines or markings, reflective surfaces with glare, etc. There's also the issue of cultural norms. About a decade ago there was actually an online test called 'The Morality Machine' one could do online where you were in control of an AV and choose what action to take when a crash was inevitable. I think something like 2.5 million people across the world participated? For example, do you hit and most likely kill the elderly couple strolling across the crosswalk or crash the vehicle into a cement barrier and almost certainly cause the death of the vehicle occupants? What if it's a parent and child? In N. America 98% of people choose to hit the elderly couple and save themselves while in Asia, the exact opposite happened where 98% choose to hit the parent and child. Why? Cultural differences. Asia puts a lot of emphasis on respecting their elderly while N. America has a culture of 'save/ protect the children'. Are these AV's going to respect that culture? Is a VW Jetta or Buick Envision AV going to have different programming depending on whether it's sold in Canada or Taiwan? how's that going to effect legislation and legal battles when a crash inevitibly does happen? These are the true barriers to mass AV adoption, and in the 10 years since that test came out, there has been zero answers or progress on this matter. So no, I'm not afraid of AV's simply because with the exception of a few specific situations, most avenues are going to prove to be a dead-end for automakers.
- Mike Bradley Autonomous cars were developed in Silicon Valley. For new products there, the standard business plan is to put a barely-functioning product on the market right away and wait for the early-adopter customers to find the flaws. That's exactly what's happened. Detroit's plan is pretty much the opposite, but Detroit isn't developing this product. That's why dealers, for instance, haven't been trained in the cars.
- Dartman https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-fighter-jets-air-force-6a1100c96a73ca9b7f41cbd6a2753fdaAutonomous/Ai is here now. The question is implementation and acceptance.
- FreedMike If Dodge were smart - and I don't think they are - they'd spend their money refreshing and reworking the Durango (which I think is entering model year 3,221), versus going down the same "stuff 'em full of motor and give 'em cool new paint options" path. That's the approach they used with the Charger and Challenger, and both those models are dead. The Durango is still a strong product in a strong market; why not keep it fresher?
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