Recently, Auto News reported that Mitsubishi is pulling the Mirage—“the only vehicle in the U.S. that transacted under $20,000 in July, according to Cox Automotive”—from the U.S. market. “Five years ago, there were a dozen models of new cars that sold for less than $20,000,” Ben Foldy writes in the Wall Street Journal. “In 2023, there was only one: the spartan Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback, which accounted for about 5,300 of the 7.7 million new vehicles sold in the U.S. in the first half of the year.” Well.
The Nissan Versa—which still lists at a little over $17,000, and looks more like a car than the Mirage—generally sells for over $20,000, as do a couple of other remaining small cars. My own car, the Hyundai Elantra (a compact, not a subcompact) is nicer than any of these bottom-dollar models, and it sold new, all told, for around $17,000 back in the mid-2010s. Of course, there’s been some inflation, so that isn’t $17,000 today, but that kind of value is vanishing. Much like the starter home, the starter car is on its way out.
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