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The safety features are worth millions of crashes prevented and thousands of lives saved, making them remarkably cost-effective.
Capping the luxury features and size of passenger vehicles would do a lot more to bring down costs than removing safety features.
Wage increases have outpaced inflation every year since 2020 (first year I checked) except 2022. MSRP has not changed significantly for compact cars, adjusted for inflation. MSRP has actually dropped for all vehicles in the last year (at least). This means that compact cars have actually become cheaper, at least by a small amount.
The people complaining about affordability aren’t buying these cars.
Edit: I guess it’s easier to down vote than researching it yourself. None of this implies affordability isn’t a broader problem.
The same basic, 2x4, light trucks, no frills, Nissan Frontier and Chevy Colorado have increased from $19k to $29k, last check, between 2019 and 2024. 4 cylinder, “truck shaped sedan” models, in terms of capacity and the ability to fit in any parking space.
That’s quite a reduction in MSRP.
Wage increases are not there. You typing it feels like a Mike Johnson sound byte. Jobs that paid $20-$24 in 2019 still pay $20-24 in 2025. Federal minimum wage remains at $7.25/hr, or $1160 a month for 40h/wk.
I’ll grant you, healthcare saw a jump, but with Covid, had it not, more of the work force would have switched careers. Most of those hourly personnel had not seen much in the way of pay increases since pre-2008, until Covid.