<story><title>Sedans Aren’t Dead, American Sedans Are</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-29/chevrolet-sedans-suffer-while-toyota-and-honda-hang-on</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>esotericn</author><text>The car market in its&amp;#x27; totality has always struck me as being irrational.&lt;p&gt;It takes a large amount of number crunching to determine that an old small Japanese car has the cheapest TCO.&lt;p&gt;The same follows across the categories (e.g. the article&amp;#x27;s specific focus on sedans).&lt;p&gt;A whole bunch of mid-market brands seemingly exist for no reason other than for some groups of not-wealthy people to waste money in an attempt to impress other groups of not-wealthy people.&lt;p&gt;e.g. the German cars which seem to exist as some sort of indicator that someone can afford to burn money maintaining a depreciating asset.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s basically the (non-smart) watch market, right. You wear a Casio-level watch if you don&amp;#x27;t care, a Rolex-level watch if you&amp;#x27;re signalling, and other stuff is basically an enthusiast market.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tcoff91</author><text>You are completely discounting the subjective experience of driving different cars. Some cars are just flat-out much more enjoyable to drive. When people are spending significant portions of their lives driving, getting more enjoyment or comfort out of that time matters to people.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s completely rational to want to enjoy your time driving a vehicle if you spend a lot of time in the car. Driving a chevy cobalt is just awful compared to driving a higher quality vehicle.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;re also far more likely to be able to avoid an accident when you have better handling and more powerful brakes. Even horsepower&amp;#x2F;torque can be a safety feature for certain accident avoidance situations.</text></comment>
<story><title>Sedans Aren’t Dead, American Sedans Are</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-29/chevrolet-sedans-suffer-while-toyota-and-honda-hang-on</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>esotericn</author><text>The car market in its&amp;#x27; totality has always struck me as being irrational.&lt;p&gt;It takes a large amount of number crunching to determine that an old small Japanese car has the cheapest TCO.&lt;p&gt;The same follows across the categories (e.g. the article&amp;#x27;s specific focus on sedans).&lt;p&gt;A whole bunch of mid-market brands seemingly exist for no reason other than for some groups of not-wealthy people to waste money in an attempt to impress other groups of not-wealthy people.&lt;p&gt;e.g. the German cars which seem to exist as some sort of indicator that someone can afford to burn money maintaining a depreciating asset.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s basically the (non-smart) watch market, right. You wear a Casio-level watch if you don&amp;#x27;t care, a Rolex-level watch if you&amp;#x27;re signalling, and other stuff is basically an enthusiast market.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rock_hard</author><text>Well, this assumes that it’s all about TCO or status.&lt;p&gt;But have you ever driven a Mercedes, BMW, Porsche or Audi? The driving expierence is superior to everything else! Tesla gets close...but I can’t think of any other brand that does.</text></comment>