"If you try to convince people that the next round of cosmetic changes is worth forking over a ton of bucks,"
Yes, that has been going on for at least 30 years (probably ever since the end of WW2.) I love to see real improvements in products, too.

Can't recommend any new laptop, but there are a lot of dell e6430 and e6330 laptops coming off lease that are very cheap... $100-$200 on Ebay. (Dell probably has some refurbs for around $300 with a short warranty.) You can buy several (with W7 pro) for the price of a new one with an intrusive OS. The cheaper ones on Ebay may need a drive and OS install, but those models are easy to change drives and memory. If you need a powerful cpu some come with i7 4-core/8-thread that will work as well as any new one. They have a tri-metal case for durability, too. (I have 4 of them at present.)
Here's one e6430 example, but I have seen better ones on Ebay recently:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Latitude...
Heres an e6330
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Latitude...

Ha! I use Win 7 and am looking for a 'new' laptop that is still Win 7. But I will take the second or third version of the autodrive that comes off the assembly line and I want that a lot sooner than 50 years.

People actually want the electric/hybrid cars and those are selling well (at least, last time I checked.) If you sell a product that people want to buy, they will do so. If you try to convince people that the next round of cosmetic changes is worth forking over a ton of bucks, then you get headlines like, Car Sales Drop.

I bet the first autodrive option cars will go like hotcakes.

Jan

I did get your mockery...but I think that the boat that the article missed was that of a 'desired change' vs that of a 'cosmetic promotional alteration'.

There is so much that is advertised that is just 'stuff' and nothing really advantageous. Making something that is actually an asset can still get sales.

Jan

Jan

Thanks, but I'll pass. Doesn't matter whether the computer thinks it can drive better than me or not. I want to be in control. End of story.

You're missing my point. Government regulations have forced the automakers into locking you out. We now live in a fascist country, made so by the boatloads of regulations coming out of Washington DC.

Can't get self driving cars soon enough. They will lower accident frequency. Luddites beware, you will be seen as preferring high accident rates rather than give up cars that must be submitted to human errors. Think you can do better driving than an automoton? I thought so too until I topped a hill at 70 mph on adaptive cruise control and though I was quick to get off the throttle and on the brake, the distance detecting and closing rate function beat me to the brake by a tenth of a second. Rubber neckers backed up from a wreck in other lanes of the interstate and cleanup was in progress. Lazy Kentucky troopers at the bottom COULD have gone to the peak and warned, but no. Thankfully the Honda Touring package of my Civic Coupe stopped me afore hitting anybody. Looked in the rearview mirror to see several others I 'spect were not so well equipped hitting the ditch. In heavy traffic downtown with a speed of 35mph set on the cruise, I balked at letting it do its thing, but the dang car would slow stop and go on its own according to the distance to the car in front of me. Amazing.

Just FYI, but any computer-controlled or monitored automobile can and has been hacked. The national engineering laboratory has some nerds there that have gone through nearly every model in the past 20 years and literally p0wned them - taking over controls, flashing lights, activating brakes, etc. If it has a computer, it's only safe from the mechanic. And if it has OnStar, it can be completely remotely controlled. This was demonstrated. GM claims they fixed it, but the only real fix is to remove the OnStar equipment, because one of its uses is to allow law enforcement remote control of the vehicle. If they can get at it, so can someone else.

Vehicles from the 90's on generally will outlast any normal depreciation schedule you would use. If you look at blue book values for anything but specialty or performance vehicles I think you'll find that after so long the value stabilizes and as long as a vehicle is in relatively decent, driveable conditionit will not drop below a certain point in any given geographic area. What I mean is that there seems to be a more or less standard bottom value for a reasonably decent driving vehicle in any given area. Where I live a decent running pickup with all its fenders and doors intact but not necessarily undamaged is worth $1000.00 give or take. A 4 door FWD sedan in the same shape is worth $500.00. These are what would generally be called beaters, mechanically sound but physically ugly transportation. In larger metro areas the value of these vehicles more than likely would be higher but would be dependent on the availability of vehicles of that type. For the most part I don't care a great deal about what my daily driver looks like on the outdide, but lift the hood and it's a diffetent story. There's nothing better than whipping some shiny new car in a little contest of speed with my dirty, dented, scratched up, sleeper. You've heard the term "all show and no go"? Well mine is "all go and no show".

If I have physical access to a car's diagnostic port, then presumably I am either the owner or authorized by the owner, and thus the car maker has no business wanting to lock me out. It's my car to jailbreak if I want.

If Mr. Elio of Elio Motors was smart he would get the huge plant in Louisiana up and running to produce the three wheel car around $7800. If you add in all the creature features the vehicle would cost a little over 10grand. Of course, it's a bit under-powered and I have been constant beating them about their forum in regards to having a turbo-charger option. I keep reminding them that if they ever attempted to drive the vehicle from their corporate office in Phoenix to Flagstaff that it won't keep with traffic @ 75mph. They will just have to sell them to the flatlanders.

Not where traffic safety is concerned. NHTSA probably has rules about the security of cars' onboard computers, thereby making necessary the specific protocols of diagnostic equipment. Imagine the problem that self-driving cars could cause if someone could hack into their systems. It's already happened. Special tools have always been part of working on cars. Fifty years ago, it was the distributor wrench, 30 years ago, it was the tamper-proof Torx bit, now it's the diagnostic computer.

There is no substitute for superior engineering and good quality materials.

Packaging more desirable options with less desirable ones has been going on for decades. Nothing new there for the auto industry, housing, basically anywhere someone may want to purchase a product in somethong other than its basic form. And while packaging options that way increases income/profits for a manufacturer/seller it also offers savings to buyers both st the time of sale and at trade in time because those options most always increase the value of a vehicle.

I'm not sure about the second claim. I used to work for a transportation company and all commercial vehicles (read tractor-trailers) had a mandated interface. A very similar interface was to be the common specification for all passenger cars, but was still several years from the mandate taking effect, thus every manufacturer had their own implementation and consequently their own machinery. I totally agree that standardization would be preferred - especially for consumers.

Its easy. Between the government's regulation cost, and the desire of the mfrs to pay exhorbitant fees to their intermediaries (dealers), the cost of the cars is just too high. They are also lasting longer than they did before, and the changes year to year are not sufficient to entice people to buy a new car. Its not rocket science. I have a 2000 excursion with no plans to get a "new" replacement. Even my Kia Soul is already 3 years old and I have no plans to even think about a new one. Used to be, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, that people bought every year or at most every two years.

1987 D150
1992 D250 with Cummins engine
1993 D350 with Cummins engine

No need for anything new. Cummins engines don't die.

Sign up for their email newsletter/blog. Very informative, and it's been really cool to follow along over the past couple years...seeing all the steps going into the process (design, engineering, manufacturing) of building an all new car company from the ground up!

I blame both. Yes, the Federal government should not be dictating how cars are to be equipped. But car makers should not be installing computer interfaces that are coded so that mechanics (or even the car's owner) have to have bought the car maker's expensive diagnostic computer in order to work on the car. That's a clear misuse of IP law -- and a direct result of the DMCA. EFF is trying to end the practice, and I support them.

Thanks for the heads up!

If you're interested in their offerings, look here: https://www.eliomotors.com/

The ridiculous price of new vehicles is why I'm looking forward to the release in 2018 of vehicles from ELIO. A very safe, fuel efficient, built in the USA automobile all for under $10K (base price only $7.5K)... You can pre-order your car now with a small down payment, or if you put down $1000 they'll give you an extra $250 toward purchase. No, I don't work for them, but I am very excited to see the results!

"I do not think the conclusion this article comes to is at all accurate."

Sorry if I wasn't more clear, but I was mocking them and their conclusions in this article. The sad truth is that they have continually priced their customers out of the market. It used to be that the cost of a car was about 1/2-year's salary. Now they've become more than an annual paycheck. And automakers wonder why they aren't selling as many cars.

One of the clever ways in which auto makers get you to buy higher priced vehicles is their packaging. If you need a certain feature which adds to your particular comfort and safety, you may only be able to get it in a certain accessory package that includes additional other features that you don't particularly want or need. The package runs the price up by over $1,000 more. You really don't need the whole package but you are compelled to buy it to get the feature you actually want. Besides, they are really cool extras. Further, the pricing of the feature you want by itself is almost the same cost as the package, so what the heck, you add it in. By the time you're ready to buy your $25,000 car, you wind up paying $31,000 instead. Many folks will say, the hell with it, I'll save up and get one next year, or possibly not at all.

I do not want autodrive at all. But I do know what you mean, Jan. I still use Win7 and won't change until there is a real advantage to me instead of a bull$%^7 advantage to the manufacturer. It will be at least 50 years of sales before I trust auto makers to deliver an autopilot that I can trust to obey me, not them or the looters. Electric cars are currently a way to avoid highway fuel taxes. Other than that I can't see any advantage (given my needs, of course;^) Elon Musk is a slimy looter who would be bankrupt without federal assistance at our expense.

"The main reason new cars cost so much ... is the Federal Government."

Bing, bing, bing!! We have a winner!