That’s part of it but most of it is the push to huge vehicles loaded with luxury features. The Subaru Outback we bought twenty years ago barely changed price despite gaining all of those safety features until they made it bigger and moved premium features into the new base model. Car companies were saved by cheap loan rates and normalizing previously unheard-of loan durations, and they realized that a lot of people won’t see the difference between financing $20k and $30k if they can keep the monthly payment plausible. Safety features are a popular excuse because it lets people disclaim responsibility for choosing to buy luxury features or perceived image.
It had more margin and manufacturer squeezed it to keep prices. If you want to see real prices look at cheapest cars. Those are no-margin. And that is why their prices are up.
This is not “an excuse”. I literally was in meetings where these cameras and extra compute were priced out in $pastJob. More cameras means more wires. More power supplies. More compute means higher end MCUs which are already very not cheap when it comes to automotive parts. More power supplies for the higher-end compute. Per-unit licensing costs for vendors’ algos to implement EAB and the like. Etc…
> It had more margin and manufacturer squeezed it to keep prices. If you want to see real prices look at cheapest cars. Those are no-margin. And that is why their prices are up.
At $25k total it had less margin than most of the domestic SUV market. People talked about safety or extra (i.e. less) cargo space or off-road capacity but that was the rationalization for all of the other frills built in to the trendy models. No-frills cars still exist, still pass safety tests, and cost literally half of the average MSRP. Safety features aren’t free but they’re not driving prices anywhere near as much as people claim: it’s just convenient to say that you’re broke because the big bad safety regulators forced you to buy the leather seats, integrated TVs, etc.
