Car prices have been going for a while, but even by recent standards a December jump in car prices is likely to be an outlier.
"The average new car price paid in December 2020 and the fourth quarter of last year crossed over $40,000 for the first time.," reports Sean Szymkowski from quarterly analysis published recently by Edmunds.
"On average, new car buyers left dealerships (or signed papers from home) having agreed to a car payment of $581 per month at a 4.6% APR over 70 months," adds Szymkowski.
As noted by Szymkowski here and in a previous article, car prices rose steadily throughout 2020 despite the economic downturn. December tends to be a high point for luxury car sales, pushing the month's numbers beyond the recent rate of price growth.
Szymkowski calls on Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds' executive director of insights, to offer some perspective about the economic divide apparent in the sales data. "It might seem at odds with unemployment levels and the harsh financial conditions that so many Americans are finding themselves in right now, but the consumers who are buying new cars during the pandemic are clearly on the other side of the economic divide," Caldwell says in the article.
Thus, "a whole host of buyers" are left out of the market, according to Szymkowski.
FULL STORY: Average new car price crosses $40,000 in 2020 and that's nuts
Report: Ride-Hailing Drastically Increases Vehicle Miles Traveled
New research published in Transport Policy finds that ride-hailing companies increase vehicle miles traveled of users by 97 percent in Chicago, 114 percent in New York City, and 118 percent in San Francisco.
Economic Justice Includes Highway Removals
A $435 billion "economic justice" bill proposed by Democrats in the U.S. Senate includes $10 billion for projects that remove highways and build community-oriented assets in their place.
The Harms of a Car-Centric World
While most of the world’s population doesn’t drive, cars have an outsized negative impact on public health, the environment, and land use.
Depopulation Patterns Get Weird
A recent ranking of “declining” cities heavily features some of the most expensive cities in the country — including New York City and a half-dozen in the San Francisco Bay Area.
California Exodus: Population Drops Below 39 Million
Never mind the 40 million that demographers predicted the Golden State would reach by 2018. The state's population dipped below 39 million to 38.965 million last July, according to Census data released in March, the lowest since 2015.
Chicago to Turn High-Rise Offices into Housing
Four commercial buildings in the Chicago Loop have been approved for redevelopment into housing in a bid to revitalize the city’s downtown post-pandemic.
EV Infrastructure Booming in Suburbs, Cities Lag Behind
A lack of access to charging infrastructure is holding back EV adoption in many US cities.
Seattle Road Safety Advocates Say Transportation Levy Perpetuates Car-Centric Status Quo
Critics of a proposed $1.3 billion transportation levy say the package isn’t enough to keep up with inflation and rising costs and fails to support a shift away from car-oriented infrastructure.
Appeals Court: California Emissions Standards Upheld
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board, the nation's two most powerful environmental regulatory agencies, won an important round in federal court last week. But the emissions standards battle may not be over.
Barrett Planning Group LLC
City of Cleburne
KTUA Planning and Landscape Architecture
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
City of Universal City TX
ULI Northwest Arkansas
City of Laramie, Wyoming
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
