Those features cost almost nothing to implement at this point, and wouldn’t add more than $1000 to the end price, if that.
Really, the main issues is that it likely is an absolute deathtrap in terms of impact safety, doubly so with our Truckasauruses everywhere. Not only that, but the reality is that, no matter how much people claim they want these barebones $10k cars, literally no one actually buys them.
Americans don’t look at MSRP, they look at payments, and that makes ultra cheap cars extremely uncompetitive for both the consumer and the lender.
They might only be willing to finance that $10k car for 3 years, and that’s a $300/mo payment, and they only make about $800 over the life of that loan. However, you move up to the $22.5k Corolla, they’ll gladly finance it for 6 years, and for only $50/mo more you get a much nicer car and they make 6x as much in interest at $3500.
Are those numbers actually correct? finance 10k for 4 years but 2.25x as much for 6? Final payments are 14’400 and 25’200 as per your numbers. So 4’400 vs. 2’700 profit plus much higher CAPEX for the lower profit?
