Today's American automobile manufacturers, both domestic as well as foreign, are typically only about the basic accomplishment of one thing, which is to extract as much money as they can from the public. The cars being sold today are presented and priced in such a manner so as to maximize profit as being the primary objective, with everything else presented as so much smoke and mirrors. While it can be said that the cars that are manufactured today contain some wonderful features, are reliable, durable, and perform their functions admirably, it cannot be said on the other hand that they are priced to benefit the consumer.
There was a time in America, to which led by Henry Ford and his assembly line vision, that the objective as explained by Ford was to: "…. build a car for the great multitude….""… constructed of the best materials, by the best men…" "… The simplest designs that modern engineering can devise…" In 1909 when the Model-T was first introduced, a total of 10,666 cars were sold at the price of $825, but with diligent improvements in assembly, labor, and economies of scale, by 1925, there were nearly two million Model-T cars sold, of which the basic Model-T sold for $260 and the touring version of it sold for $290. The per capita GDP in 1925 was approximately $800 and a car selling for $275 in 1925 would be sold today at about $3,725, inflation adjusted. However, there aren't any new cars for sale at that price in America, with the Nissan Versa at about $13,000 being pretty much the lowest cost new car available in America. This signifies that despite all of our advances, in technology and knowhow, labor improvement, and whatnot that the individual cost of buying a vehicle has gone up considerably in America.
While times have changed, and while obviously cars of today aren't the same in features and performance as they were back in Henry Ford's day, the principle of car manufacturing has also changed and changed for the worse. Henry Ford's objective was to make an affordable car for the people, one that could be purchased by an honest hard-working America, as opposed to providing transportation just for the privileged of America. Ford believed in giving his customers the greatest utility value possible for the dollar, whereas today's manufacturers too often believe that they should instead do everything possible to maximize their own profit by any means possible.
In India, they have a city car, which is the Tata Nano which in its most economical configuration sells for about $3,132. While to date the Tata Nano has not been the success that Tata imagined, the basic concept is sound and a throwback to a different era when the objective was to build cars that were both useful in their function as well as affordable to the common man. In America, those of the millennial generation are often stuck in a frustrating cycle to which they have both massive student loans as well as disappointing job prospects, signifying that the income that they make barely permits them to scrape by. What they really don’t need, however, is a car payment that is too large for their salary, lengthy in time, and just serves to increase their financial burden, as they suffer endlessly the ill effects of too much debt.