The affordable car is about to disappear in the United States

Let’s be in advance here: American cars have not been cheap for a long time. The average price of a new car in the United States is nearly $ 50,000, up around $ 5,000 against two decades ago, even adjusted for inflation. The reasons are multiple: the vehicles have become more complicated and expensive – to manufacture, the car supply chains of the coco -9 pandemic, and the car manufacturers of Detroit have put the brakes on passenger cars and the more affordable naked in the past decade.

But the automotive prices applied by the Trump administration this week – and another set of parts of parts that should start next month – can actually put an interest in the affordable American car, according to experts, by increasing the prices of thousands of dollars.

Among the biggest losers will probably be the buyers most sensitive to the country’s prices, for which a higher sticker price means waiting to negotiate in their old car. Movements can also exert pressure on used markets because these former new car buyers help increase demand.

At the end of March, the 27 American vehicles had an average transaction price of less than $ 30,000, according to data collected by Cox Automotive; Seven of them are interrupted and simply sell remaining cars. About half of the remaining models will be subject to prices because they are assembled outside the United States. Apply approximately $ 6,000 to each of these prices of these vehicles – which the company estimates that the prices will cost by automatic – and there are only five left: the place of Hyundai, the Soul Kia, the Sentra Nissan, the Chevrolet Trax and the Nissan Versa (which is interrupted this year).

The victims could include the popular Hyundai Kona (built in South Korea), the cheapest SUV of Jeep, the compass (Mexico) and the Ford Maverick Truck (Mexico) model. Last year, General Motors had a blow on his hands with the Chevrolet Trax, which begins at $ 21,000. But the car is assembled in South Korea, and could therefore become more expensive.

The calculations will become even more complicated next month, when the Trump administration indicates that it also begins to apply a rate on imported automotive parts. Even popular affordable models assembled in the United States – such as the Subaru Crosstrek, manufactured in Indiana, or Honda Civic, built in Ohio – contract components from the outside of the United States.

Some affordable models could disappear completely, explains Erin Keating, executive analyst at Cox Automotive. “The American consumer, we love our big, personalized, special and inexpensive things,” she says. “It will be quite difficult to manage.” The days of the car of $ 20,000 are almost finished, and the days of $ 30,000 could also be.

Buyers can be on the verge of an intensive forced course and not where car manufacturers base their headquarters – Toyota and Honda, Japan; Volkswagen and Audi, Germany – but where they build individual cars. There may be good business hunters to know, for example, that the Toyota Corolla of $ 23,000 is built in Mississippi, that the Volkswagen ID of $ 45,000 leaves Tennessee, and that the Honda Civic of $ 25,000 is assembled in Indiana.