In 4Q18, the average new car loan in the US was $545 per month and $387 per month on average for a used vehicle. The average interest rate was 6.3%, also a decade high, according to Edmunds.

One driver of that is the ever-increasing American interest in SUVs, trucks, and crossovers, Edmunds manager of industry analysis Jeremy Acevedo said.

Read more:The US government is cautioning Americans that if they visit Jamaica they could be at risk of sexual assault and homicide

"Right now, one of the driving factors behind that is that Americans (are making) a massive shift to SUVs and trucks," Acevedo told Business Insider. "It's driven the prices up to unprecedented levels, so much so that today's average vehicle price is up to $36,000."

Americans have been buying more and more big cars. In the early 2010s, as Bloomberg reported, trucks and SUVs started to overtake small and medium-sized car sales. Experts now forecast that, by 2022, under 35% of new car sales will be passenger vehicles and more than 65% will be trucks and SUVs.

LMC Automotive estimated that, by 2022, 84% of General Motors vehicles sold in the US will be a truck or SUV, CNBC reported. For Fiat Chrysler, that ratio will be 97% and 90% for Ford.

The dark side of America's big car obsession

Middle-class Americans can't easily afford trendy big cars. Take the Ford F-Series — it's America's top-selling car, but its starting price of $28,000 doesn't render it as affordable as, say, a $14,000 Ford Fiesta. The average American household has less than $9,000 in savings, and nearly a quarter can't cover their living expenses from their emergency savings accounts.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4223361&forum_id=2#37947924)

Nice way to break up the article

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4223361&forum_id=2#37948029)

Writer here is having fun.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4223361&forum_id=2#37948044)

How is this possible - what could be going on here?

For the new car figure -

1) first naturally wonder if it's just a skewed distribution, and the mean is being driven up by the right tail, but the right tail / wealthy people don't take out car loans for $500,000 cars do they? In any case I don't think it's a case that the median would be a ton lower here, because the right tail of car purchases will include tons of cash purchases.

2) Could this not be the sample we're thinking it is - i.e. it includes tons of car purchases from businesses who buy fleets, lots of new trucks for their work crews, etc. Not sure on the proportional breakdown of how many car purchases are consumers vs. business purchases, but maybe some of this?

3) Maybe we're not realizing how many poors just flat out don't purchase vehicles - so unless you have a steady reliable income stream maybe lots of poors just go without a vehicle and e.g. ride the bus? So we're not really talking of "average people" rather a self-selected sample of people with enough money to purchase a vehicle, but it still seems high even then. Maybe this is just a bit of plain old sample selection bias.

4) We see plenty of this - but maybe we just underestimate just how many people are willing to be car poor. We've seen the spending habits of poors, and for people in these situations, obviously houses aren't the same option for them to flash their status symbols as vehicles, whereas with cars they can be car poor but still own a status symbol realizing it's not like they're going to build wealth by saving an extra 100 per month anyways (in their minds)

5) Our culture is fucking sick and rotten to the core - encouraging people to consume so far beyond their means as the only way to gain social recognition or satisfy the empty feeling they have.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4223361&forum_id=2#37949976)

TITCR

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4223361&forum_id=2#37950403)

They do if they get a 0% or 1.9% interest deal. That is free money. They don't take 4-6% loans obviously.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4223361&forum_id=2#37950517)

but yea #5 is obv cr

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4223361&forum_id=2#37951424)