Cash for Clunkers “stimulated” demand for new cars in the manner
of digging holes – and then filling them up again. It reduced the available
supply of good used cars – by paying people to throw away perfectly good used
cars.
Something similar is under way right now, but it’s subtler and
so most people haven’t noticed it yet.
Unless they’ve begun shopping around for a used car. If they
have, they will have noticed an uptick in used car prices; that certain
makes/models – and years – are not holding their value but gaining it.
That is contrary to the usual – natural – course of things. Cars
age, accrue miles – and depreciate (lose value). People replace them with new
cars. But the latest crop of new cars has technology many people don’t want –
and so they’re not buying new but looking for old.
Just old enough to not have the latest safety technologies, such
as steering “assist” – which vies with you for control over the car. Or
automated “emergency” braking that peremptorily slams on the brakes when
there’s no emergency (hyper-caution is programmed into the system). Or
drive-by-wire control over throttle and transmission – which means no
mechanical control over the engine or the transmission. If the engine decides
to floor itself, there’s not much you can do except hang on and hope for the
best – especially if the transmission (gear selector) is drive-by-wire,
too and so there’s no mechanical way to force the transmission into Neutral in
order to at least disconnect a run-away engine, if you can’t shut the damned
thing down.
Almost all new cars also have electric parking brakes rather
than manual (drive-controlled) emergency brakes and many people – me
among them – are not comfortable driving a car that can’t be manually stopped
in the event of an emergency.
These technologies are being practically force-fed to the public
by the combined efforts of the car industry – which has decided there’s gold in
them thar hills, that it is better to join ‘em than to fight ‘em and so let’s
make this stuff standard and thus make more money – and, of course, the
“safety” apparat in Washington, which has every incentive to mandate whatever
is possible and no incentive at all to leave it up to the buyers, since that
places control in their hands rather than the apparat’s.
The result is that even entry-level and family-priced cars now
commonly have some or even all of the features just described, which just two
or three years ago were very rare and mostly found only in high-dollar cars.
Within another couple of years, it will probably be impossible
to find a new car that doesn’t come standard with most of these features – as
well as other features that are currently in development – including passive
alcohol detectors and direct-link communication with “smart” roads for purposes
of tax-by-mile programs (already being implemented) as well as other things,
including giving the government the power to shut down your car at its whim for
traffic infractions, not having paid fines, passed inspections and so on.
In addition to those things, there are also other things being
resorted to by the car industry to maintain power/performance while at the same
time reducing fuel consumption, in order to keep the government off their
backs. The up-front costs are hidden or at least, made manageable, by
stretching out the payments over six or seven years instead of the formerly
usual four or five. But the tsunami that’s coming will hit shore when people
find out what it costs to repair/replace the technology being resorted to in
order to keep the government off the car industry’s back.
Full-size trucks with turbocharged fours (2019 Chevy Silverado).
Family cars with ten-speed transmissions – three of those speeds
being overdrive speeds – for highways with 70-75 MPH speed limits.
Direct and port fuel injection (the latter to deal with the
carbon-fouling problems caused by direct injection).
Obnoxious stop-start systems that automatically shut off the
engine every time the car isn’t actually moving – multiplying the load/wear and
tear on the starter battery and starter as well as being obnoxious and annoying
– in order that the car performs fractionally better on the EPA’s gas-mileage
test loop.
When it breaks – after the warranty is long gone, when the
vehicle is only worth a third of what you paid for it – look out!
Which is why the prices of used cars – particularly certain ones
– are suddenly surging, much as they did after the Cash for Clunkers program
did its evil business.
The models most in demand now – and soon more so, as the limited
supply of them dwindles – includes V8 trucks and SUVs, family cars/crossovers
with V6 engines rather than highly-strung turbocharged four cylinder engines
and anything without a direct-injected engine or a transmission with more than
six speeds.
Also vehicles still under your control – without steering
“assist” and automated emergency braking. With an engine that doesn’t shut off
until you shut it off – and which (in a real emergency) still has some
mechanical fail-safe means by which you can arrest its forward motion.
These vehicles are the
cohort made – roughly – from the mid-late 1990s through the early 2000s, before
technology became too insufferable and too cheap to prevent its being grafted,
Locutus of Borg-style – into pretty much every new car.
Almost every car made
since 2015 or so is a lost cause. The ones on deck will be much worse.
So, now’s the time to get
in on the action. Before everyone else figures out that they’re not making any
more new cars without the crap they don’t want – and the supply of those
without that crap is not going to be increasing.
. . .
Got a question about cars – or anything else? Click on the “ask
Eric” link and send ’em in!
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