# Car Price Economics \[changed title\]

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-price-economics-changed-title/129936>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 27, 2002, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-price-economics-changed-title/129936 "2002-09-27T21:10:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![zipper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/5f8ce5/32.png) [@zipper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zipper)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-price-economics-changed-title/129936/1 "2002-09-27T21:10:05Z")

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Maybe someone can explain it to me: why the auto industry is makeing more carswith less people and more technology and yet the price of a car keeps going up.  
Shouldn’t the price go down ?

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**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-price-economics-changed-title/129936/2 "2002-09-27T21:45:45Z")

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**zipper** ,

It helps to have descriptive titles. I’ve changed the title for you.

**DrMatrix** - General Questions Moderator

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**Author:** ![jk1245](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2002, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-price-economics-changed-title/129936/3 "2002-09-27T22:11:55Z")

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Two (maybe 3) reasons primarily:

1. The cost savings from automation and cost cutting are less than the increasing costs of wages, raw materials, etc.

2. Because people are apparently willing to pay $20k plus for a car. The hottest selling vehicles of the last 5 or so years have been expensive (and profitable) SUV’s. If people all of a sudden refused to pay more than $12k for a car, the price would drop (and probably so would features, gadgets, luxuries, etc)

3. I don’t have the data, but have cars gone up at a higher rate than wages (I mean an average car. I don’t doubt the high end cars have)? When people talk about how they could buy a nice house for $30k in the good ol’ days, they usually forget to mention that they made $10k per year then too. Has the cost of an average new care gone up faster than the average wage of the person buying it? If so, see answers 1 and 2 above. If not, the point is moot.