Did you even read the article before making your comment? It is actually data driven like you are demanding, while your own comment is not beyond the most basic sense. A superficial count of models below $25,000k MSRP is not adding to the discussion.
Example 1:
The article claims that the affordable Nissan Versa Note cost $16,545 in 2019 and was discontinued. But not saying that this would be $21,168 in today’s dollars and they leave out an important detail: Nissan still sells the Versa in the US, just not the Note hatchback version. The current Nissan Versa starts at $17,190 according to Nissan’s own website: https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/cars/versa-sedan.html
That’s actually about 20% less expensive than the inflation-adjusted number from 2019.
Example 2:
And then they claim that price increase is: 29.2% - just 3% more than inflation (but they did not want to mention total PCI). But even that number of 29.2% cannot be verified on BLS.gov nor fred.stlouisfed.org . I uploaded FRED and BLS data to chatgpt o3 and it says that new vehicle prices increased 22% from 2019 to 2025 - actually less then inflation:
2019: 146.220
2020: 149.091
2021: 166.653
2022: 176.463
2023: 178.269
2024: 177.552 fred.stlouisfed.org (slight dip from 2023)
2025: ~178.7 (May 2025)
Overall, from 2019 to mid-2025 the index increased from ~146 to ~179, amounting to about a 22% cumulative rise in new vehicle prices.
