Even further it assumes the median family is buying the average new car. Median families buy median used cars.
The fact remains if you are buying a M3 you are in the top 15% of american households in terms of income.
Since I have long made my living with statistics:
Of course any measure of central tendency produces a biased view. It is for that reason that when any detailed analysis of market potential is made one immediately begins to search for modes and also make adjustments for many other factors. For years roughly a third of US vehicle sales have been for cash, generally to wealthier and older people. These same people skew towards two modes of price, one below the mean and one a multiple of the mean. (which one depends mostly on the class of vehicle involved and net worth, not income.
By the time one excludes those cash buyers, all the other measures skew quite substantially too.
I do not argue too much with the rules of thumb, although I'd include factors such as own vs rent, stability of income and living situation, etc. Adding up those many factors one might as well adopt a generic FICO score as a surrogate for all of them. Not by coincidence, generic used car buyers tend to have credit scores about 70 points lower than generic new car buyers. All taht is relevant, but makes our discussion much too complex.
From what I read in this thread, most of us posting here are exercising sound financial judgement for our own situations. This is no surprise to me since Tesla buyers are much better educated than most new car buyers, and also plan more. Frankly, Tesla sales process makes that a self-fulfilling prophecy because there is no conventional advertising, most of us must order our cars and wait for them.Those factors are strong positive selectors for good financial judgement.
To my last point, some years ago I led a project for a very large US auto manufacturer (still under non-disclosure). We evaluated hundreds of variables to gain insight to: 1. brand loyalty, 2. buyer demographics, 3. purchasing behavior and a few other things. It turned out taht people who ordered their cars were far more desirable in loyalty and demographics were superior in every aspect except age, because they were older than other buyers. The report was almost 200 pages.
Now in this thread the superior thought and planning is reflected in that all of us are planning for a car that will only arrive in two years or so. BY that time we'll all have figured out every financial and non-financial nuance. Frankly, I am impressed, even with most of the people I am most prone to argue.
