1 in 5 Americans Are NOW Paying $1,100+ Monthly for Cars | The Payment Crisis EXPOSED | Episode 1013

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It's noon here in Venture City, New Jersey, and this is Car Edge Live for February 17th,

ladies and gentlemen.

It's noon here in Venture and in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

Your hosts today, as always, are me, Ray here in Venture and Zach, my handsome son, hanging

out of this apartment in D.C.

How are you today?

Handsome?

I'm doing well, Dave.

Happy Tuesday, February 17th, grateful to be with you here for another episode of Car

Edge Live.

Today's show, folks, is brought to you by none other than CarEdge.com.

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Dad.

Yes?

The big story this morning.

You ready?

I'm sitting down, so yes, yes, I'm ready.

One in five Americans are spending more than $1,000, over $1,100 a month.

There was a new article that just came out on MoneyWise, Washington, mom dishes out $1,100

a month in car payments, and she is alone.

One in five Americans have four-figure car payments.

This is the new normal.

You and I have been talking about this for a while.

Payments are exploding, and at the same exact time, Dad, there's another phenomena that's

adding to cost of ownership, software-defined vehicles hidden threat, the high cost of keeping

their tech fresh.

There's an estimated additional $600 in ownership expense to be coming for car shoppers and car

owners because of technology investments.

You've got increasing car payments.

You've got increasing cost of ownership.

It's a little bit of a left jab, right hook, like a one-two combo.

Or if you're a southpaw like me, it's a right jab and a left hook, but either way, I saw

a comment from our dear friend, Mark Miller in there, and he says, I don't get the math.

If only 13% of the population can afford to buy cars, how can 20% have payments in excess

of $1,000?

Well, it's 20% of the 13% that can actually buy a car that have those payments.

It's not 20% of all the people out there, but that is a scary number that we thought

it was crazy when we were approaching one in five people having a car payment of close

to $1,000 a month, and then it was over $1,000 a month.

Now we're talking about $1,100 a month, and we haven't factored in automobile insurance,

which is what, $200 to $300 a month?

We haven't factored in maintenance.

We haven't factored in fuel.

We haven't factored in depreciation.

There is no faster losing investment, and by the way, buying an automobile is not an

investment, ladies and gentlemen.

But there is no faster losing what people think is an investment than buying a car.

The costs associated with that are skyrocketing.

And the fact that of the 13% to 15% of Americans that feels if they can participate, the fact

that 20% of those are opting for payments of $1,100 a month or more, that's a staggering

number.

I don't have people do it, and I've been saying that for five years or six years.

And there is no way you can convince me that, well, we know the vast majority of the people

can't do it, because the vast majority of the people don't no longer find themselves

looking at new cars.

They're looking at used cars, because new cars are way too expensive.

It's just staggering to me.

I want to dig in though, so again, yes, the new headlines are now no longer just $1,000

car payments.

It's $1,100.

It seems like every week that's going up and up and up.

Another kicker to this, dad, is the cost of ownership spree, and you were speaking to

it there just a moment ago.

And again, this comes from an article in Automotive News, software-defined vehicles, hidden threat,

the high cost of keeping their tech fresh.

This article is fascinating, dad, because essentially, what it's saying is that as cars

become more and more software-enabled, well, the reality is as they sit on roads for 10

to 15 years, it is actually costing and creating organizational, you can see right here, the

cost and organizational burden of continuous support, change man and validation increasingly

threatened to become one of the largest and least predictable operating expenses in the

software-driven vehicle era.

Dad, the estimates from the industry are that it could cost anywhere from $4 to $600 per

vehicle annually to actually just make sure that software and subscription fees and things

like that and all that software-driven crap works in your car that you keep for the next

decade.

Think about that.

We are going to have to update caredge.com cost of ownership, because right now it says

your car payment, which is including the interest, it says your insurance cost, it says your

fuel cost.

We get a little bit of heat because we also factor in depreciation, shocker, that's a

cost of ownership.

We now need to add in, if it's a software-driven vehicle, you need to anticipate $4 to $600

a year in software costs, because these companies are taking on new cost infrastructure and

what happens when companies take on cost burden, Dad, they pass it along to the consumer.

They tend to pass it on to the ultimate customer.

Isn't that crazy?

Well, I guess that's par for the course when it comes to software and technology.

There's a reason it's 1.0 and then 1.1 and 1.2 and onward and upward, because it's always

being updated and refined and improved and somebody's got to pay for all that.

I'm pretty sure when people buy their cars and they don't realize what they're driving

around in today is a massive computer, but that's what it is.

It's like they're computers at home.

It's going to need to be updated occasionally and sometimes you have to pay for those updates.

The payment, Dad, comes in the form of these companies are now going to have to staff differently.

They're going to have to organize differently.

The cost of these companies is to look a little bit more like a software company, which is

not cheap.

Then, when they paid these people those salaries to do those things, the cost ultimately gets

passed along to the consumer.

Yes.

Another way to make cars even less affordable for the vast majority of people out there.

Perhaps if we had fewer computers in cars and they were less reliant on software, perhaps

the cost of those vehicles could actually go down.

Here's the other phenomena that ties right back into this.

What's happening, and we talk about it all the time now, what's happening that's keeping

people in cars longer?

One is they can't afford to get into a new one, so they're just simply saying, okay,

I'm going to stay in my current car.

The other are extended loan terms, Dad.

You have these people in cars outside of warranty typically because they're taking on 7,280,

490, 620 month car loans.

Again, we talked about this yesterday, but I want to pull it up on the screen.

There's a viral LinkedIn post.

This is the benefit of being a part of the car edge community, y'all.

You are in the know of how the auto industry is thinking.

Brian Benstock, this man runs dealerships, ready?

Every 84 month loan costs you four transactions.

Most dealers don't see it this way.

They see lower monthly payments, faster deal closes, F&I hitting their numbers.

What they're missing?

Every time we stretch financing to 84 months, we remove a customer from our trade cycle

for seven years.

In that same window, we could sell them three new vehicles and take in two trades, excuse

me, five transactions versus one.

So not only that, do we have the proliferation of, and do the math for a second here, folks.

You want that $1,100 a month car payment?

That's 66,000 financed over 60 months at 7%.

That's absurd.

So many people are extending the term out on that 66 month financing to 84 months to

then have higher cost of ownership because there's more software in your car.

And the industry loses in this case, the consumer loses in this case.

It's the perfect lose-alose situation, Ed.

It is what Brian was pointing out there is that so many dealers today do not look at long term.

They just see short term.

Having spent 43 years in the industry, I can assure you that if you are in management,

everything is broken down into monthly terms.

The first of a month, you start at zero, the end of the month, you want to hit a number.

And so you think in February 28 day cycles, or 30 or 31 day cycles, and that's as far as you

look ahead, okay?

Because it's one day at a time.

And what Brian's pointing out is that if you don't take a longer term view, you will ultimately

lose sales that you could have had.

And I was going to say this yesterday because this part is truly incumbent upon the customer.

And don't get mad at me, folks, when I say this.

But you need to look at cars that you can afford the payment for 48 months or less.

Maybe max 60 months or less.

So if that means you have to give up many of your wants and just settle for your needs

so that you can keep a relatively comfortable payment for 48 or 60 months,

as opposed to extended terms like 72, 84 and 96 months, you would be doing yourself a favor.

It is, there are certain things in life that at least in my opinion are worth stretching for.

Cars are not one of them.

Real estate typically is because historically most real estate appreciates over time.

And so, you know, a house, a condo, a town home, whatever it is, that's something that,

okay, maybe you stretch a little more on a comfortable payment because that's actually

going to be worth more over time than what you initially paid for it.

The vehicle that you're looking at, that in order to have the wants that you desire,

as opposed to just the needs, well, that's a losing proposition.

That is not one of those purchases that you stretch on because it's not going to go up in

value. Okay, so we saw during COVID times, but that was an anomaly.

That's not normal. So let's assume to a certain degree things are back to normal.

That car you're looking to purchase today is going to depreciate in value.

So six, seven, eight years from now, it's going to be worth considerably less than what you

purchased it for as opposed to that home that you stretched for that could be worth thousands,

if not 10,000s of dollars more. So as a consumer, you have to take that into consideration.

You have to put aside your wants just one time in your damn life. Put aside your wants

and just settle for your needs so that you can shorten the term loan length so that you're not

getting clobbered with interest. Talk about wants and needs. We're going to switch gears and we're

going to talk about Subaru. Subaru wants and needs that to increase their sales by more than a third

in less than the next 10 years. Subaru is trying to go from 900,000 vehicles sold to 1.2

million units globally. At the same time, Dad, they're going to absorb over 1.5 billion in tariff

costs that are going to impact their profitability. So Subaru, Dad, their strategy in a post tariff

world is the way that we're going to win is they're going to sell more volume. This is the classic

we're going to make it up in volume. So this is the first signal we're seeing from an automaker

that's essentially saying, don't be surprised if we come out with big incentives, deals for customers

to cover their new tariff, 1.5 billion dollars in tariff costs. They're going to try and

grow through volume, which I thought was super interesting. They are looking at their core

products and trying to figure out how they can add to those core products so that they can have more

offerings so that they can grow sales globally from 900,000 to 1.2, 1.3 million. And they figure

if they can do that, that that will help to underwrite the cost of the extra cost of the

tariffs that they've been absorbing. Would you think it would work? Yeah, if you come out with

the products that people want to buy, but if you come out with products and they're dead on arrival,

you know, like what was it? The BRZ, not the BRZ, their electric vehicle that hasn't taken off

and may never take off. I mean, you know, those are investments that aren't paying off with them. So

their hope has to be that whatever it is they come out with is stuff that people want. And

we have seen in the automobile industry over time that the theory that many manufacturers have of

if we build it, they will come and buy it is not a true statement anymore. There are many vehicles

out there, ID4. If Volkswagen build is it, ain't nobody coming to buy it because it is the slowest

selling vehicle in America based on the day supply of vehicles that are on hand. So in theory,

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Two factors that go into growing sales by 33%. What are we trying to sell and what's the price

of it? Think of it this way, Dad, for a second with me. Subaru's selling about 900,000 vehicles

right now and they're trying to, and that's globally, and they're trying to make up a $1.5

billion tariff. That's like 1600 bucks a car because they're trying to make up. So think about

that for a second. Well, if they sell 1.2 million instead of 900,000, now they got to make up less

per car. So going for the volume play here may actually be something that we see many automakers

try to do. And Subaru is pretty notorious for having a simple lineup. Compare the Subaru lineup to

like Jeep, for example. You're not getting nearly as many variations and iterations. So

it could be interesting here to see if Subaru, especially because you know what, I don't know

if anyone at Subaru watches our show, they know the same data we know. People do not want to

actually spend $1,100 a month on a car payment. And so maybe they will come out with some cheaper

options, some simpler options, and then incentivize the heck out of them so they can hit their sales

goals. But if you read the article, it states that the vehicles that they're looking to produce

to grow that number will be more expensive, higher profit margin vehicles. So you know,

one of the things, one of Subaru's secret sauces has always been, A, its all-wheel drive,

and B, it is reasonably priced for the type of vehicle that it is. So they have a very loyal

customer base because it's affordable. Well, if you are going to concentrate on the upper end

of that market, well, you might be pricing many of your customers out. And so that would be,

if I was working at Subaru, that would be my counter argument is you can end up doing to

Subaru what Stalantis did to Jeep, which is to continue to raise the prices and go more upscale

until you get to the point where your customers no longer feel as if they're your customers

because you've priced the vehicles out of their reach. I don't know how you make up a $1.5 billion

expense due to tariffs. You know, they only build final assembly in basically two countries,

Japan and the United States. And so much of their vehicles that they sell come from Japan

and are subject to a 15% tariff. I don't know that they have the ability to be able to build

more cars in the States. So this is going to be an ongoing struggle for years and years and years

for many of these manufacturers, especially, and we've seen it with Mazda as well,

especially the manufacturers that tend to produce their mass market reasonably priced in relatively

inexpensive quality vehicles. We've seen Mazda sales go backwards because they've tried to go

upmarket and they admit they're trying to go upmarket. We could see Subaru sales go the wrong

way because they're saying we need to go more upmarket. We need, in my opinion, we need more

manufacturers that understand there's a huge market to be served at lower price points as

opposed to higher price points. You mentioned Japan. You mentioned these automakers going in

the wrong direction. Well, folks, we've got an update on Nissan Honda Mitsubishi. We're two years

into dating. I want to be very clear. Two years of dating between Nissan Honda Mitsubishi talking

about a merger. This is fascinating, especially in the lens of what you just talked about, which

are these automakers who are struggling in this current environment. Now, if Nissan,

Honda, and Mitsubishi combined, maybe the world's third largest automaker over 8 million vehicles

sold, and it's pretty clear here, dad, Nissan needs Honda. Mitsubishi needs Honda. Honda doesn't need

Nissan or Mitsubishi. So it's an interesting dynamic because Nissan's been struggling here

domestically in the United States, and globally, and we've talked about it, they've shut down many

of their manufacturing plants, globally, seven of them. They're trying their best. Yeah, you see

it here from Edward. Honda needs to avoid the merger. We're in two years of dating and we're

getting more headlines and automotive news. So maybe talks are heating up, maybe.

I don't know, Honda is experiencing some financial issues. The cost of electrification

and the cost of tariffs has cut their, I mean, they're losing money. It has cut their profits

to the point that there isn't any. They are struggling financially and they are one of the

largest independent automobile manufacturers in the world. If they're struggling financially

because of tariffs and everything else, and we know Nissan is, and we can assume that Mitsubishi

is as well. Well, I don't know that it gets any better when you put three struggling brands,

financially struggling brands together, and hope that you're going to come out with a super brand

that is going to cure the financial ills that you're experiencing because there's just not enough

money to go around to, and if you're going to counteract the cost of tariffs,

there's a couple of ways to do it. Subaru thinks, okay, we need to increase sales dramatically.

The other way is to raise the price of the vehicles to cover your cost of those extra tariffs,

and if you do that, then you're on the risk of losing your customers again because the price

of your vehicles has gone up. And everybody says, well, just build the damn things in America.

That's easier said than done. We talked about it last year when we first started talking about

tariffs. Yeah, okay, build them in America. Well, if you were to build a plant today,

it's not like it'll be ready tomorrow. It takes years, and it takes a lot of money, and in the

meantime, a lot of these manufacturers are bleeding money because of the cost of tariffs. So,

I don't know what the answer is. I am glad that I work at CarEdge and not at Subaru or Honda on a

corporate level, but it is going to be a struggle for a number of these brands to be able to survive

these extra costs. And ultimately, maybe I'm wrong, but ultimately, I think those costs

will get pushed to their customers. The consumers will definitely be the ones that end up paying for

that. Now, one company that has actually been the darling of the past few years,

well, that company would be Carvana, who reports their quarterly earnings tomorrow.

Would that be Carvana? They do, and leading up to their quarterly earnings, Carvana's stock

has gone down more than 25% in the past month. So interested to see what happens tomorrow because

that the market's pricing in that their stock is going to move in one direction or another.

That's the expectation. I think we're going to get a pretty big signal here for the health of the

used car market tomorrow. Carvana is, are they the largest now, used car dealer? Second largest?

They're still behind CarMax, but allegedly, well, obviously, they're going faster than any

other used car retailer out there. Definitely. And certainly, via their accounting practices,

they can book and tend to book higher profits significantly, I don't know, two to three times

higher profits than everybody else that's been in the business.

But then the second, I just want to stand on this for a second. So they are the second largest

used car dealer. We know the used car market. Let me actually pull it up that. I didn't queue

this for today's show. So let's take a quick peek. Bear with me. You know where I'm going?

I'm guessing Blackbook. Going to Blackbook. Let's see what's going on with wholesale used car prices.

Okay, they went up again. Historically, they go down this time of year. Again, they went up. I'm

not bowed well when you compare it to 2024 and 2025. You can see this. Yeah, this chart shows you

wholesale used car prices. Each line is a year. The orange line is 2024. The green line is 2025.

The black line is 2026. Used car prices are appreciating more than they did in 24 and 25.

This is a time of year where they should not be increasing in value. And so, yeah, I think

they are part of on that. They are. You can look at those, the green line and the orange line,

and you can see for the same time period in those previous years, the wholesale values were going

down not up. And we have started the year where wholesale values started going up almost immediately.

And I think one of the reasons for that is because the new cars are too damn expensive.

And so, and as dealers are anticipating a slow down in new car sales, and every pundit has spoken

about that for 2026, where they expect new car sales to be soft this year. Well, that indicates

to dealers, well, then we have to be in the used car business. And they're bidding up used car prices

higher and more quickly this year than what we have historically seen. That doesn't bode well

for used car buyers out there. It would indicate to me, they're going to be asked to pay more,

a significantly more than they would have in the past.

Well, I'm going to be watching the earnings tomorrow, Dad. Don't be surprised if it's

Carvana shocks the car industry because it will really be an insight into what's going on the

used car market. Well, here I can help you one way or the other. Those earnings will shock the

industry either negatively or positively. But there will be a shock and I can assure you

that'll probably be in a headline somewhere. That options traders are expecting. So like the people

who buy the options on the stock market, they're expecting a 15% price change in Carvana stock

tomorrow. So like, yes, everyone is anticipating some volatility and some shock. Who knows if it's

going to be positive or negative, that's to be decided here in the next 24 hours. But it will,

I think, actually give us a really good barometer of the health of the used car market and quite

frankly, in particular, like the sub-private used car market because, again, a lot of Carvana's

customers, because of their lending practices, are able to get approved for auto loans.

As I've always said, Carvana is in the loan origination business and the vehicle that they

use for that is the sale of used cars. They don't really care about the car. They only care

about creating that loan and then being able to package all the loans that they create and sell

them off as asset back securities. Which to be clear here is what a lot of car dealerships are

turning into in the savvy ones. That's for sure. From Matthew here, Dad, thank you Matthew for this.

We really appreciate it. This weekend, the Wall Street Journal Review was a new Volkswagen Tiguan.

$45,000 are they on drugs? My 230i M Sport was $45,000 and I got it for $37,000, not as practical,

but also not a Volkswagen. $45,000 buys a Patek watch. Patek yourself, Volkswagen, what a world.

Wow. You know that $45,000 that buys the Patek Philippe watch? That is one of those

investments that will actually go up in value, as opposed to that Tiguan that will go down in

value faster than a boat anchor drops off of a super yacht. Again, folks, a friendly reminder,

we are in beta with CarEdge dealer ratings. Now, on that same little website, there's reports and AI

negotiation impact. Take a peek at this, guys. We have contacted 47,205 dealers. We've done

47,200 by dealer outreaches from July of last year. In just the last 45 hours, oh my gosh,

24 hours, we've saved customers $45,500 in AI negotiations. You can literally go on this chart

and see how many new negotiations are started each day, how much money we've saved for customers.

In the past 14 days, dad, $1.3 million have been saved. This is calculated by OTD quotes,

first OTD, last OTD. Each day, we're saving people almost $90,000 for context here, dad.

Yeah. This is what we've done so far. 19.5 million saved, 47,000 negotiations,

436,000 messages sent, more than 13 million hours saved for buyers. Dealers are responding 69

nice percent at a time. Dealers have replied almost half a million times. In just the last

seven days, we've brought $508 back to customers. You can learn even more about dealer responsiveness,

how long it takes them to respond, how much we're saving based on how many rounds and negotiations.

There's so much good information back here in this new little website. I encourage how we're

by each state, dad, in case you're curious which states are getting better results from the AI agent.

Please, y'all, this is in beta, seeking feedback, seeking input. Check it out and share some comments

in the chat below. I promise I will. Thank you, dad. I encourage everyone out there to do the

same. There it is. All right. We're back tomorrow with more Carriage Live. How's that sound?

It sounds good to me. I'll be back here from Ventner. I'm assuming, and one can never assume

with you, but I'm assuming you'll be right there in your trusty apartment in D.C.?

I think I'll be in the office tomorrow. I think I'll be in the office.

Okay. Well, there you have it. You'll still be in the confines of Washington, D.C., though.

Indeed, indeed. Thompson, good afternoon. I'm going to do the same over here. Everyone,

thanks for tuning in. We'll be back tomorrow with more Carriage Live.

Absolutely. Thank you, everybody. See you tomorrow.

All right.

1 in 5 Americans Are NOW Paying $1,100+ Monthly for Cars | The Payment Crisis EXPOSED | Episode 1013

About this episode

dock fee

dealer markup

OTD

add-ons

tariff costs

Subaru BRZ

Volkswagen Id4

Jeep

all-wheel drive

Mazda

Nissan

Mitsubishi

Honda

electrification

tariffs

Carvana

new car sales

used car prices

asset-backed securities

Volkswagen Tiguan

BMW 230I

BMW 230i M Sport

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