At a time when Americans increasingly want pricey SUVs and trucks rather than small cars, the Mirage remains the lone new vehicle whose average sale price is under 20 grand — a figure that once marked a kind of unofficial threshold of affordability. With prices — new and used — having soared since the pandemic, $20,000 is no longer much of a starting point for a new car.
This current version of the Mirage, which reached U.S. dealerships a decade ago, sold for an average of $19,205 last month, according to data from Cox Automotive. (Though a few other new models have starting prices under $20,000, their actual purchase prices, with options and shipping, exceed that figure.)
There is some truth to this but small cars have been selling poorly for years now. I’m sure marketing campaigns are at play here but surely some people are capable of seeing through those. Why does no one buy small, affordable, efficient cars anymore? It’s baffling to me.
Part of it, as I understand, is that vehicles classed as light trucks instead of passenger cars (i.e. pickups and SUVs) are exempt from certain safety and testing requirements. Car manufacturers push them super hard because less money on regulatory compliance = more profit.
There’s also been the cultural tie between big vehicles and masculinity, I’m sure the marketing teams haven’t been shy about reinforcing that attitude.
Honestly it’s becoming increasingly hard to drive smaller cars in the sea of tank sized ones for a couple of reasons.
First, it can be really hard to see in situations where an SUV is blocking your view of the oncoming traffic or you need to pull out between two tanks. Also, I find it really difficult to drive my small car at night because I have astigmatism and the oncoming trucks and suvs are shining directly at my face the whole time. Last, even small cars with good safety ratings fair poorly in impacts with higher and heavier cars, especially if I had kids I think this would be a significant motivation to not have the smallest car on the road.
It’s an infuriating situation as someone who doesn’t want to buy a land boat just to go to the grocery store, but I don’t really think the blame can solely be placed on consumers. What we really need is to close the loopholes in emission standards for SUVs, implement a tax on heavy vehicles, and start taxing gasoline at sustainable rate. Unfortunately there isn’t much desire to do any of those things right now :(