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If you’re looking for a statistic that really puts the car affordability crisis into perspective, here’s one. According to a Cox Automotive study, six years ago, buyers who made at least $150,000 annually accounted for 29 percent of new-car sales. During a month-long span in 2025, that group accounted for 42 percent.
That’s the result of an average new-car transaction price that inevitably broke through the $50,000 barrier last year. For that reason, it’s no surprise that so many buyers who might’ve walked out of a dealership with a new car five or 10 years ago are instead taking a secondhand vehicle home. The average used car cost just shy of $26,000 as of October, according to Kelley Blue Book, also a Cox subsidiary.
Dealers have responded to these trends by reducing already slim margins on new vehicles, focusing on making money on the back end through service when possible. But even then, there’s a floor, so used cars have naturally come in to fill what the new market can no longer satisfy. The president of a Michigan Ford dealership told Automotive News that many shoppers today are being swayed away from pricier new cars and toward low-mileage certified pre-owned vehicles with 100,000-mile warranties.
Ironically, the buyers who can afford to go new seem to be happier than ever with their decisions, according to Cox’s study. Over three-quarters of new vehicle buyers indicated that they were “highly satisfied” with their car-buying process, a record high for this survey. They attributed that satisfaction to improved vehicle selections and more efficient and smoother experiences at the sales and finance desks.
New cars are, on the whole, very good and very reliable. Used cars, too, benefit from that trend, as older vehicles fall out of the market. It’s little wonder why any buyer, new or used, would be more pleased with their purchase today compared to 20 years ago. But there’s clearly a gulf forming in the market, where shoppers who come in expecting to drive off in something relatively inexpensive and new are instead pushed toward the used lot. More than halfway through this decade, it’s already safe to look back at the 2020s as the era when new cars definitively became a luxury.
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Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site’s slate of daily stories.
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