Corolla killer is jumping the gun a bit. Will these cars still be operational in 30+ years? What will their condition be like after 500,000km on the clock?
Once they reach these milestones then maybe they can call themselves a Corolla killer.
Almost everyone puchased will be driven to that extent. Person A from 0-125k selling it to person B who drvies it to 200k selling to person C who drives it to 375k selling it to person D who ...
The car lasts and is driven after it is traded by it's first owner if it remains in good condition. Toyota and their Corolla brand has /EARNED/ the right to be at the top of the tree on that count and maintained it over many decades.
Yes, but there is no incentive for Person A to choose a brand new Corolla when it's $22K and the alternative is $15K. The value depreciation when they sell to person B will be lower than the Corolla, especially when factoring the fuel savings in.
Why do you think there will be a lower value depreciation for a Chinese EV than a Toyota? Toyotas have insane resale value. We bought a 2012 Toyota 4Runner used for $30,000 in 2016. KBB on it now, at 12 years old and 130,000 miles, is still $15-18k.
In my circle of friends/family/neighbors/acquaintances, it's common to have a vehicle over 200k miles. Over 300k is noteworthy but not unheard of. Both of my cars are over 275k (bought them a little before the 250k mark).
One guy I see regularly is driving a 400k mile minivan. At my previous job I saw a customer driving a 500k mile Corolla, as well as a couple of customers with 400k, and countless over 200k.
I received the car at about 370k miles, drove it about 10k more for ~2 years in college. The only problem I ever had with it was the battery sucked in the winter.
Nope. That's mostly (I guess?) an issue in places with a lot of winter months that use salt on the roads instead of sand. It's had a bit of rust, but nothing a buzzbox welder and some steel sheets couldn't patch.
We owned one that barely made it to 120k miles (Matrix, which was essentially a hatchback Corolla) and would have required more money to keep it running than the vehicle was worth.
The weird thing about that is that the Pontiac version (Vibe) was built in Fremont, CA on the same assembly line as the Corolla, but the Matrix was built in Ontario. So you actually got the better car if you went with the GM badge!
(And yes, that Fremont factory that built the Corolla is now the Tesla factory)
My dad bought a corolla in early '90s, which he used for over 20 years without significant issues. We eventually sold it and got a new car mainly because of the much better safety measures in modern vehicles.
If a car is half the price and lasts half as long, what's the issue? Why do we need to gatekeep car ownership for people that can't afford to buy a car that lasts 2 decades? You bring up waste as an issue, but I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with waste, aside from any externalities associated with it. If that's what you're concerned about, those should be taxed at the source, rather than letting that slide but trying to regulate it by enforcing minimum durability standards.
lol "i don't see any problems with waste aside from the problems with waste"
have you ever see those drone shots of children playing on 90ft mountains of fast fashion discards in chile and ghana or whatever? when you watch that, do you nod along sagely because the free market working perfectly and that's comforting for you
also, i disagree with the premise that we are "gatekeeping" car ownership unless we race to the bottom. you can buy used cars!
>lol "i don't see any problems with waste aside from the problems with waste"
And if you read the sentence right after, you'd see my alternate proposal rather than trying to set an arbitrary durability threshold.
>If that's what you're concerned about, those should be taxed at the source, rather than letting that slide but trying to regulate it by enforcing minimum durability standards.
The MSRP of a baseline 2024 Corolla is $22,050. No idea what you actually pay out the door.
Assuming both of those sticker prices are accurate, I might still be leaning towards the Toyota. I know it will last for a long time and have no problems obtaining parts/repairs so long as I own it.
I don't know about now, but I was in the market for cars during Covid and the dealers were truly jacking up the prices. Corollas were definitely not in the 22k range. Hopefully the situation improved.
A new car is great but loses on average 10% of its value as soon as it leaves the dealer's lot, and after 5 years, depreciates to 40% of its value. You can often get a barely used car for a lot less than its MSRP.
the Car and Driver recommended trim level is $25k, and a random google search says 12 years (across all vehicles) is an average ownership period and ~13,700 miles/year. so napkin math and the average is over 250k km for the vehicle lifetime. i suspect toyota is meaningfully higher, but can’t prove it.
at that price, and with those economics, i think a great many people would care
Most people I know would never even consider buying a new car and pay more like $5k (maybe max $10k), nothing near $30k. But lots of them have home solar. I can see them going for a new EV if EVs are much cheaper than for an equivalent ICE car.
that is the point. if you had an old corolla you might not care about the price of any new vehicle. and this isn’t just new, it is new to (limited) market. unproven, over time.
$15k is sufficient to make most individuals hesitate briefly. perhaps you have enough saved away to be a bit more cavalier with such amounts.
I don’t know anyone who would hesitate at $15k considering current state of the auto market. I do know there’s lots of middle class and below who would finance it and give it a chance, versus a $500-$1000 monthly note at current vehicle prices and interest rates.
Average price of a vehicle is not a good metric for this. If a bunch of Americans finance $150k trucks (and they do!), that inflates the average, but it's not relevant.
What's relevant is the lowest price for the economy/compact model of a mainstream brand, which seem to be around $20k. For a $5k difference (or less) I don't know if gambling on a new Chinese electric car would be that attractive.
Those high prices were in a period of both low interest rates and, during the pandemic, limited supply pushed to the most expensive models. I will be surprised if they stay that high under current interest rates and economic concerns.
In 10 years both of them will be utterly outdated, but it might be easier to replace the battery with a cheaper lighter 2034 model. Resale price of both will be governed by the price of new equivalent electric cars in 2034. If you’re allowed to drive the Toyota near a city. It’ll be like smoking laws in 20 years.
(We currently drive an old ICE Toyota because post-Covid prices were nuts and I’m not overcapitalising given the above.)
We have an MG ZS ev, and we've done 110,000km in 3 years. Battery capacity is at 93% which I think is pretty good, but I don't intend to be driving this for 30 years.
All new cars, including Toyta Corollas, have a lot of software in them, and it should be updated from time to time, e.g. to fix bugs. For example, see:
If enough of these are sold, it doesn't matter if they're reliable, since repairing any issues will become cheap.
Garages all round the country will be able to disassemble and reassemble to swap any part in minutes, and there will be a super cheap non-oem clone of every part that fails.
Once they reach these milestones then maybe they can call themselves a Corolla killer.