Featured Toyota Debuts Stylish, Powerful 2026 C-HR Battery Electric Vehicle

I was reading the other day about an EV that costs the buyer the equivalent of $7700 new in China. Subsidies and supply chain efficiencies and favorable regulators all bring the price down. So does cheep labor. Not to mention a huge protected market but a US built car wouldn't be competing.

There will probably be a half dozen Chinese car makers out of business in the next 12 months. The big makers (5M units/yr) have such a scale advantage the little guys can't compete.

How long can Tesla stay in China given that landscape?

 

The old Trax and Sonic were pretty close in size. The sonic EV/Bolt development was soon after the Spark EV came out. There were few EVs out, and most were for sale in a few states only. GM had 4 or 5 Sonic EV prototypes running around. Their range was 50 or more miles shorter. Also under 200 miles, like all the non Teslas of the time. Ranges most of the public saw as too short.

Small car sales were always lower, and sedans were falling out of favor before EVs showed up. Then two of the companies sticking with sedans didn't want to make plug ins.

True of ICE platforms, which is what early EVs were mostly stuck with. BEV platforms have longer wheelbases, which is allowing sedans to be made with acceptable ranges now.

 

agreed. and sometimes people who do not have enough money buy what they want to buy and get in trouble

 

Let's just hope that what they want to buy isn't actually a need to buy while working as much as they already can.

 

i'm sure it is sometimes. i read about a lot of ride share drivers who can't afford a decent car on the money they make. it makes no sense, how do they all get by?

 

Things are tough these days. I have about as good of a paying job I can get, but to be able to qualify for buying a home I'd need to be making around double what I make now. I missed the home buying opportunity when COVID hit. Let's hope that rent doesn't double and triple. A lot of places around here won't accept you if the rent would be more than 1/3 your income.

Cars, what's the point in getting a nice new(ish) car if one can't even afford a home? My only hope is that used car prices will stay low. Maybe I'll be able to get something like a used C-HR EV some day, although I'm not exactly looking forward to that day.

 

yeah, i'd be driving an old corolla or camry if i couldn't have afforded the bolt.

 

Actually - there are hundreds of auto manufacturers there. That number will be pared down by over 100 in the very near future.

 

Prices of homes have gone nuts. And cars aren't much better.

We had 2 kids, bought a house right before covid and lucked out there, but took extended parental leave options provided here in canada with 20 months of leave combined taken for each. So since 2021 we've been at, on average, 60% of our normal gross salaries. We did get some salary growth in there, so it offset some of inflation, but at the end of the day, we dipped into savings to maintain our work pensionable time contributions while off.

While I want to get a CHR EV someday, if the waitlist isn't long enough, when its ready we won't be ready. We still have our old car to drive for a little while longer, and my wife and I are paying off the 2024 Prius PHEV for another 2 years probably, even with some extra payments.

I emailed the guy who sold us the prius in 2024, and he said that for a new model release, if you pre-order early, you can expect a 6 month wait usually. But who knows what pricing will actually be in CAD, and I'd be down for an 18-24 month wait since that would be better for us financially to be honest. But 6 months is way too quick. So I guess we'll have to just wait and see.

We have the added hitch of an old car thats on its last legs. At what point is it just better to get a 2018/19 era used hycam or prius for 3 or 4 years to sell on once ready to get an EV, or take advantage of a ripping good cheap lease from, for example, Nissan, that shoves cheap cars out the door under warranty through crazy discounts because they're struggling to move cars? A not great but warranty covered car for A to B under a cheap promotional lease as a short term play isn't the worst thing in the world either.

If I lived in the places in the US that had that crazy stack of lease offers for the stupidly cheap Fiat 500 EV or the Nissan Leaf for what was it, 100-200 USD per month late last year, I would have taken it in a heartbeat.

 

No Arene with TSS 4.0? Not good. Sounds like revamped old technology. I would go with the new Arene-equipped RAV4 if I wanted to get a Toyota SUV EV.

 

Yeah. I got caught between a rock and hard place. We took on two nephews who were orphaned at the beginning of the pandemic. We kept being told that we shouldn't be looking for another house until the adoption was finalized. That was 5 years ago and the adoption was finally finalized this year. But we're still in a tiny 500 square foot trailer, all 4 of us, because there is no other option now.

I'll see what the used ones cost 5 years from now. But right now, it doesn't make much sense to buy a used car. If you go by 200k as the end of life, most cars with 100k cost 1/2 what a brand new one costs. At least that seems to be the way it is with Toyotas. Sadly, I don't think I can afford a new car either. Unless it were one of those ultra cheap leases on an EV.

I was very tempted to lease a Nissan Leaf for as little as $9/month here in Colorado. I just don't have room for another car, and everything is 200 to 400 miles away, many times without hardly a charging station in between. Plus, my Avalon has the modifications I wanted, my all-band, amateur radio, and a tow hitch. Plus, I got rims and snow tires for it too.