The new car our hypothetical American is buying in the articles is a whopping $48k. That's an insane amount of money, and you can get a very, very nice new car for half that price. How about the Honda Civic, MSRP $24k?
Two questions spring to mind. What on earth are Americans buying that the median car price is so high? What percentage of Americans can afford a new car if Jalopnik picked an affordable new car?
You probably are not aware of car prices in the USA. In the old times (let's say 10 years ago), you could still buy a reasonable car for 24K. Over time these cars were been progressively replaced by more expensive models, and nowadays you probably cannot find a good car for that price anymore (except for basic entry level models). The pandemic and the carmakers decision to move to EVs has consolidated this price change.
Still, for the median income American that would mean working almost half a year to solely pay a Civic (not considering gas, services, etc) sounds insane.
The median new car price sounds so high because it only includes people who buy new cars. At the lower end of the new car market, those cars are competing with used cars. People often choose to buy a more up-market used vehicle than to buy cheaper new cars.
I can't quite figure out what the average transaction price measure KBB is using here is. going by their tables by category (for example, an average of $26,379 for compacts)[1] and that the price is now below sticker[2], it looks like they're not using the OTD/TTL cost and just the portion related to the vehicle.
Two questions spring to mind. What on earth are Americans buying that the median car price is so high? What percentage of Americans can afford a new car if Jalopnik picked an affordable new car?