Working from Home vs. Car Values

[gnonne]

First, I'm in MI. We have been restricted for quite some time. Also, I work for a local college that is run by a few real lefties. I haven't been to my office in nearly 4 months and I'm not allowed to go back. When Fall starts, I can go to teach certain small classes, but I can't hold my office hours in my office... But, I can go to Menard's everyday...

OK, here is my point. With many (certainly not all) people working from home these days, I think that the public's perception of the value of vehicles has diminished, in some cases considerably. Why would I pay $30-40K for something that is "optional?"

In spite of this, GM has decided to stop making affordable cars. I'm not sure if the execs at GM or the admin at my college are less intelligent.

FWIW, the college has already started to see the financial impact of its decisions, with fewer enrolling, and they even got the unions to agree to pay cuts. It will not take long for GM to see the same impact.

 

[TboneMinister]

First, I'm in MI. We have been restricted for quite some time. Also, I work for a local college that is run by a few real lefties. I haven't been to my office in nearly 4 months and I'm not allowed to go back. When Fall starts, I can go to teach certain small classes, but I can't hold my office hours in my office... But, I can go to Menard's everyday...

OK, here is my point. With many (certainly not all) people working from home these days, I think that the public's perception of the value of vehicles has diminished, in some cases considerably. Why would I pay $30-40K for something that is "optional?"

In spite of this, GM has decided to stop making affordable cars. I'm not sure if the execs at GM or the admin at my college are less intelligent.

FWIW, the college has already started to see the financial impact of its decisions, with fewer enrolling, and they even got the unions to agree to pay cuts. It will not take long for GM to see the same impact.

I'm sure this may vary depending on the region and regulations in effect, but in-all pre-owned car values are through the roof. In fact, our lenders are being blown away by the amount of purchases still being made, and are even having to fight for the companies to extend more lending. This may seem contrary to what's expected, but that's what we're seeing.
*Works at a Chevy dealership*

 

[shorebreeze]

I'm sure this may vary depending on the region and regulations in effect, but in-all pre-owned car values are through the roof. In fact, our lenders are being blown away by the amount of purchases still being made, and are even having to fight for the companies to extend more lending. This may seem contrary to what's expected, but that's what we're seeing.
*Works at a Chevy dealership*

This is what I'm hearing too, and a lot of it has to do with people being terrified of using mass transit due to Covid. I know the feeling -- I get on the CTA if I have a downtown errand and nine out of every ten people have masks and you're terrified because of that one person who doesn't. And there's always one.

So for every person working at home instead of driving, there's another person driving instead of taking the train or bus. CTA ridership is down by 70 percent pre-pandemic; Metra ridership is down by 91 percent (and was down by 97 percent at one point before starting to recover).

On a related note I tried to get my radiator fan repaired at my favorite old mechanic on the other side of town. They had a nine day wait list to look at it. Thankfully I found a good shop I wasn't previous aware of down here, due to a referral, but it gives you an idea of how much car demand there is.

But with the Sonic, Honda Fit and other small cars going away, pretty soon all we'll have left for convenient small cars is a bunch of Toyota products (padded by the fact that Mazda and Subaru at this point are all but part of Toyota), maybe a handful of other Asian entries, and then SUVs from everywhere else.

In the end the only thing that's going to drive improvement in that situation is the only thing that's ever driven improvement in the US non-SUV car market outside of the luxury segment over the past 50 years and that's government regulation. If the automakers aren't forced to meet a fuel economy or energy efficiency standard, they won't, because the only part of the market where competition truly drives innovation in the long run is in the luxury segment. Other than Ford in the days when the company was still privately held have we ever had a car company voluntarily innovating in the small car segment?

Other countries get this. China gets huge choice of cheap EVs and Europe gets huge choice of cheap gasoline vehicles and is about to start getting better EV choice as well because government regulations are forcing the issue. In America, on the other hand, we've had waves of good models when there's been a major development in government regulations, followed by them all getting discontinued when someone else gets in and guts those regulations out.