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All depends on how poor a poor person is, and where he or she lives.
In terms of absolute numbers, yes, "poor" is relative. It's not relative, however, that wherever they are, "poor" means "bad credit," and that is a severe limitation on where one can buy a car and what car one can buy.
In terms of absolute numbers, yes, "poor" is relative. It's not relative, however, that wherever they are, "poor" means "bad credit," and that is a severe limitation on where one can buy a car and what car one can buy.
I can agree with you on that. Something else: it's difficult to tell how poor a poor person is. For example, a person living on Welfare still has a smartphone, an automobile, and lots of toys to play with at home. I may have more cash than he or she, buy I have to pay rent and other things out of my own pockets.
It depends on the part of the country you live in. Out our way, the majority of new autos in a car dealership, are Pickups (mostly 4 doors) and SUVs.
Those cars are known as the most dangerous cars on the road. Not for their drivers, but for anyone stupid enough to crash a small car into one.
Out here, we go to town to go shopping, and put on over 100 miles in a trip. Not exactly EV type car territory. We want to pick up any object of any size, we can take it home in the pickup (no deliver available). We can drive right though snow, that leaves the small cars the OP likes to talk about stuck. Going up steep mountains, also cuts the mileage for an EV, but never slows us down.
My wife and don't own a car. We have a pickup, to take things to the dump (no garbage pickup for us), and to take to town when picking up large items on a shopping trip. We have a 1999 Blazer with over 160,000 miles and still uses no oil and runs like new. Body and interior good as any 2 year old car which my wife uses to run down to the store or the post office a mile away. When we want to drive something nicer or travel, we break out a 2 year old Explorer with all the bells and whistles. With the dial capability to improve the 4X4 drive, we can go anywhere regardless of weather.
Some of those cure girly cars used in the city, are almost worthless out here, and you don't see many of them. Even our women drive real cars and big SUVs, and Pickups.
It depends on the part of the country you live in. Out our way, the majority of new autos in a car dealership, are Pickups (mostly 4 doors) and SUVs.
Those cars are known as the most dangerous cars on the road. Not for their drivers, but for anyone stupid enough to crash a small car into one.
Out here, we go to town to go shopping, and put on over 100 miles in a trip. Not exactly EV type car territory. We want to pick up any object of any size, we can take it home in the pickup (no deliver available). We can drive right though snow, that leaves the small cars the OP likes to talk about stuck. Going up steep mountains, also cuts the mileage for an EV, but never slows us down.
My wife and don't own a car. We have a pickup, to take things to the dump (no garbage pickup for us), and to take to town when picking up large items on a shopping trip. We have a 1999 Blazer with over 160,000 miles and still uses no oil and runs like new. Body and interior good as any 2 year old car which my wife uses to run down to the store or the post office a mile away. When we want to drive something nicer or travel, we break out a 2 year old Explorer with all the bells and whistles. With the dial capability to improve the 4X4 drive, we can go anywhere regardless of weather.
Some of those cure girly cars used in the city, are almost worthless out here, and you don't see many of them. Even our women drive real cars and big SUVs, and Pickups.
It's the same in Alaska (lots of pickup trucks), and pretty much for the same reasons (hauling trailers, construction materials, taking trash to the trash collection sites, and so on).
The way I see it, being poor or rich has nothing to do with driving gas guzzlers.
In terms of absolute numbers, yes, "poor" is relative. It's not relative, however, that wherever they are, "poor" means "bad credit," and that is a severe limitation on where one can buy a car and what car one can buy.
I personally know a few poor people with very good credit. However, because they are poor, they cant take advantage of it. If they go out and purchase things using their good credit, who is going to pay for these things when they can't afford them. My friend told me she needed a new stove but she could afford another monthly bill because she could have bought the stove on credit. She bought a very nice stove for 50 bucks at a yard sale . The people pretty much just wanted to get rid of it because they remake their kitchen.
I see this a lot of this in Texas. Many of the poor people will not consider more efficient minivans over an SUV because the latter is derived from a truck. Living for today and paycheck-to-paycheck, yet shelling out almost $100 a fill up, you would not want them for your financial adviser.
Also there are a lot of SUVs from the boom period of mid nineties to mid 2000s still around for cheap.
I personally know a few poor people with very good credit. However, because they are poor, they cant take advantage of it. If they go out and purchase things using their good credit, who is going to pay for these things when they can't afford them. My friend told me she needed a new stove but she could afford another monthly bill because she could have bought the stove on credit. She bought a very nice stove for 50 bucks at a yard sale . The people pretty much just wanted to get rid of it because they remake their kitchen.
Let me correct my rhetoric to make my same point: "Poor" people may not have bad credit if they have not made foolish purchase decisions in the past. But unless they can demonstrate sufficient ability to pay, they do not have the credit necessary to purchase a Prius and such vehicles because those are not found at the used car dealers that will extend credit to "poor" people.
In 1997, we bought a 1993 Ford Club Wagon (Van used to tow the pop-up) for cash and are still driving it. Our 2nd car is a 1995 Lincoln Continental bought 8 years ago with cash. The cost of yearly repairs for both combined is probably less than 2 payments on a fuel efficient car. We don't go a lot of places as we live in a small town. Had we bought some of the fuel efficient junk boxes and replaced them as they fell apart, we would not be debt-free. These bigger vehicles are an investment in something that lasts. Keep in mind the pollution and natural resource use of continually having to upgrade a vehicle. We, too, buy our Starbucks coffee at the grocery store and never eat out. Trader Jo's? Oh, big deal, we shopped there to when we were near one but never found it anything to brag about. So, poor people aren't necessarily the only ones that drive something other than big toy cars. If you are making a payment on your car, charging your Starbucks and Trader Jo purchases...............
In my view must of us are making all kind of assumptions about the “poor” without taking into consideration that we too may be poor compared to others who are richer, and that we too may have bad credit. Heck, even very rich people can have bad credit.
I have lived in poor neighborhoods, and the car dealers do in fact have small and large used cars for sale. The best deals aren’t ones from car dealers, but from relatives and friends, even neighbors. It means that most cars in poor neighborhoods aren’t purchased from dealers, and that fuel efficiency is not the primary factor for purchasing a car, but the mechanical condition of the car, or whatever need the purchase of the car fulfills.
Then a lot of us aren’t considering the following: people living in both the poor and rich neighborhoods of most major cities use the transit system to move from place to place during the week; otherwise they would be stuck in traffic during the rush hours. It means that the people who drive the least number of times are these people living in the inner cities. So, why should fuel consumption be in anybody’s mind when living in a place where driving a gas guzzler is only done occasionally or for short distances?
What happens to a lot of us in this and other forums is that we see others as being the problem without realizing that we too are the problem.
I have as a second vehicle, my old work van. It gets lousy gas mileage but it seldom needs repairs. I can afford to buy a little more gas for it easier than buying another vehicle. It's a 1985 with only 120,000 miles. Probably drive it another 10 years.
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