The Phoenix
BIG ISSUES IN OUR WORLD
STORIES BY FOUNDRY ACADEMY SENIORS
The Decline of America's Industry of Freedom
SHELBY MAROSY
The automotive industry has spent decades selling the promise of freedom, but behind the showroom glass, cracks are beginning to show. For generations, the automotive industry has been one of the strongest pillars of American life. Cars represent freedom, independence, and economic power. Millions of people rely on vehicles every single day to get to work, take children to school, visit doctors, and carry out everyday responsibilities.
The industry itself has long been viewed as a symbol of innovation and success, consistently evolving with new technologies and record-breaking market prices. However, behind polished dealership floors, expensive new vehicles, and billion-dollar corporate profits, a serious crisis is growing, one that threatens the future of the entire industry.
The workers responsible for keeping American vehicles running are disappearing. Automotive technicians, the highly skilled workers who diagnose and repair vehicles, are leaving the profession at alarming rates. Many industry insiders warn that dealerships and manufacturers are creating working conditions that are driving technicians out faster than new workers can replace them. While companies continue making massive profits from rising vehicle prices and expensive repair services, the workforce keeping the industry alive is shrinking under the pressure of increasing demands and improper compensation.
Most consumers do not realize how serious the problem has become, but signs are already beginning to appear everywhere. Drivers across the country are facing longer repair times, delayed service appointments, higher maintenance costs, and overwhelmed service departments. What once took a single afternoon can now take several days or even weeks. As vehicles become more advanced and dependent on complex technology, the shortage of skilled workers is becoming impossible to ignore. According to many technicians, the industry itself is to blame.
Modern vehicles are no longer simple mechanical machines. Today’s cars are packed with advanced electronics, computer systems, sensors, hybrid technologies, and electric drivetrains that require extensive training to diagnose and repair properly. Mechanics now need skills closer to those of computer engineers than traditional repair technicians. Yet despite the increase in technical demands, many technicians experience improper compensation and harsh working conditions.
The shortage has become so severe that even major manufacturers are publicly acknowledging the problem. Ford CEO Jim Farley publicly stated that Ford alone currently has around 5,000 unfilled technician positions in the United States. If one company is struggling to fill thousands of positions, experts believe nationwide shortages may be far worse than people realize. The consequences of this labor shortage stretch far beyond inconveniences. As dealerships struggle to maintain enough staff, the remaining technicians are being forced to take on larger workloads under intense pressure. Technicians often face strict time limits, demanding customers, and constant expectations to produce faster results, which only drives more technicians out of the industry.
At the center of the problem is the flat-rate pay system used by many dealerships across the country. Under this system, technicians are not paid for the actual number of hours they work. Instead, they are paid based on predetermined estimates assigned to each repair job. For example, if a repair is expected to take two hours, the technician is only paid for two hours of labor, even if unexpected and unavoidable problems cause the repair to take three or four hours to complete. Supporters of the system argue that it rewards efficiency and productivity, but many technicians say the system has become exploitative and financially unsustainable, while also encouraging rushed and sloppy work due to fear of losing income.
Many experienced technicians are leaving for other careers that offer more stable pay, better work-life balance, and less stress. Younger generations are also becoming less interested in entering the profession, especially after hearing stories about burnout, financial instability, and poor working conditions from people currently employed in the industry. Vehicles are becoming more technologically advanced every year. Electric vehicles, advanced driver-assistance systems, and computerized diagnostic systems require extensive specialized training, which often must be paid for out of pocket. Few workers are willing to enter a field that many now see as physically exhausting and emotionally draining.
The mental health impact on technicians has become another deeply concerning issue. Research has shown that automotive technicians experience one of the highest suicide rates among all occupations in the United States. Industry workers frequently report high stress levels caused by unstable income, physically demanding labor, unrealistic performance expectations, and constant pressure to complete repairs quickly. For many technicians, the job becomes emotionally overwhelming. Unlike many professions, a technician’s income can fluctuate dramatically from week to week depending on the availability of repair work, warranty labor reductions, or unexpected complications that arise during repairs.
Despite these growing concerns, the automotive industry continues projecting an image of success. Vehicle prices have reached record highs in recent years, and dealerships continue to generate billions in revenue. To the average consumer, the industry might appear stronger than ever. New vehicles are packed with luxury features and advanced technology, and manufacturers continue reporting strong profits. However, this does not mean the industry as a whole is healthy. In many cases, companies are increasing profits by changing payment plans and decreasing labor. Although this imbalance may temporarily boost profits on paper, it weakens the workforce that the entire system relies on. Without enough skilled technicians, the industry simply cannot function long term.
If the shortages continue, the effects could become far more serious than delayed repairs. Customers will face higher maintenance costs due to limited labor availability, vehicle downtime will increase, and the quality of work may decrease, making transportation much less reliable for millions of Americans who depend on their cars every day. This crisis could greatly damage customer trust. As service quality declines and wait times increase, consumers may begin losing confidence in dealerships and manufacturers as a whole, not to mention brand loyalty, which is one of dealerships’ greatest assets. If manufacturers and dealerships continue to prioritize short-term profit over workforce stability, the technician shortage will spiral into a much larger economic and operational crisis. The workers responsible for keeping America moving are already beginning to decide that the industry is no longer worth the physical, emotional, and financial toll.
One proposed solution is restructuring or replacing the flat-rate pay system entirely or establishing a minimum weekly salary for technicians. Advocates argue that technicians should be compensated fairly for actual hours worked rather than estimated repair times. This would potentially reduce financial and emotional stress, improve repair quality, and help retain workers. In addition, employers should improve working environments to make them more hospitable for technicians. They should also provide the specialized training required to work on newer vehicles and operating systems. These changes could promote and attract an entirely new generation of automotive technicians.
The industry still looks powerful from the outside. Dealerships remain busy, vehicle prices continue climbing, and manufacturers continue to advertise the future of transportation. However, underneath that image, the workforce responsible for keeping those vehicles on the road is slowly shrinking day by day. If the people fixing America’s cars continue to walk away, the industry may eventually find itself dead on the road.
The Tipping Point:
When Courtesy Becomes Obligation
ASIA VAN VALEN-FACEY
How Tipping Started
In America, tipping has become more than a courtesy, it has become part of the Service Industries business model. Instead of paying workers a stable wage, many businesses rely on customers to fill the gap. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, some tipped employees can be paid a cash wage of as $5.15 per hour (far below the standard minimum wage), as long as their tips make up the difference. For many workers, that means their income depends less on their employer and more on the generosity, guilt, or mood of the customer standing in front of them
In the United States and Canada, tipping has become so normal that most customers don’t think twice about leaving a few dollars on the table or selecting a percentage on a tablet. But this is not how tipping works everywhere. In many other countries, tips are not expected, and in some places, they can even be seen as rude.
Europe does have a history of a small amount of tipping culture, though tips were originally only left in taverns to ensure quick service. Wealthy Americans discovered it for themselves in the 1850s and 1860s while traveling in Europe. Tipping began to spread by rail, through the newly established Pullman Company, a luxury railcar service. What began as an imported custom eventually became something more permanent in American service work: businesses were allowed to treat tips as part of an employee’s wages.
Modern Problem with Tipping
That is where the modern problem begins. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers can pay tipped workers a cash wage below the standard minimum wage, as long as tips bring the worker’s total pay up to the legal minimum. This wage, which hasn't increased since 1991, is only $2.13/hour.
This greatly affects the people working in the service industry. It creates a system where these employees are almost solely reliant on the tips they make. Nationwide, they represent about 62 percent of servers’ incomes, and 43 states have a sub-minimum wage for workers who are tipped.
This puts enormous pressure on not only the employees but also the customers. Given that it’s common knowledge that servers are reliant on tips, it puts this pressure on customers to tip, no matter the quality of their experience. In fact, 66% of consumers say they feel pressured to hand over a tip when digital payment screens suggest gratuity amounts. Many restaurants also add an automatic gratuity for larger groups of people. This means the customer is charged a tip before deciding whether the service earned it.
Digital vs Physical Tipping
With all the new advancements in technology, people are falling victim more and more to convenience rather than practicality. Everywhere you go now, there is a kiosk or a tablet sitting at the table displaying a little screen at the end of your transactions, asking if you would like to leave a tip.
One problem with digital tipping is that the tip you leave may not actually reach the worker. In many places, tips are pooled and split among the staff, meaning the person you wanted to reward may only get a small portion of the tip.
This “collective tipping” can put a damper on the attitude and workmanship of those serving you because it weakens the connection between individual effort and individual reward. If the same tip pool is shared no matter who worked the hardest, some employees may feel less motivated to go above and beyond.
At the same time, business owners still benefit from a system where customers are expected to contribute extra money toward worker pay. In the end, the customer may not be rewarding the person they meant to reward, and the strongest workers may not receive the full benefit of the service they provided.
So what next?
Tipping itself is not the problem. Many customers want to reward good service, and many workers depend on tips to make a living. The problem is that tipping has shifted from a courtesy to an expectation, while businesses are still allowed to pay tipped workers a lower base wage.
The new federal tax deduction for tips, available from 2025 through 2028, may help some eligible workers by allowing them to deduct up to $25,000 in qualified tip income from federal income taxes. However, this does not solve the larger issue, because it does not require employers to raise wages or make tipping less necessary. If customers are being pressured to tip everywhere they go, and workers still cannot rely on a stable income, then the system is not working fairly for either side.
Businesses should be more transparent about where tips go, workers should be paid a stronger base wage, and lawmakers should continue looking at whether the tipped minimum wage still makes sense. Tipping should return to what it was supposed to be: a choice made in response to good service, not a guilt-based substitute for fair pay.
Spotify Killed the Radio Star
BIX TAYLOR
Nearly two years ago, I decided to invest in a cassette player. To most any person who has experienced cassette players firsthand, this would seem like a wildly foolish idea. However, I had become increasingly disillusioned with the emotional tether I had developed to my phone and decided that the only thing holding me back from my true potential was the promise of unlimited musical access through Spotify.
The only logical solution at this point was to return to what is generally considered to be one of the worst formats for music consumption. At first I worried about the sudden narrowing of what I was able to listen to and the potential cost of buying the albums I wanted rather than the blanket value of $12.99 a month for nearly all music ever released.
But since realizing a world outside of digitized music, I have gained a deeper appreciation for it than ever before. Take for example one of my favorite albums, 1989’s Paul’s Boutique by the Beastie Boys. After streaming it countless times, I finally got my hands on a reasonably priced tape. What I thought was an experience I knew back to front now had a whole other aspect to appreciate. I could now hold the music in my hands, I could inspect the cover and read all the lyrics, I even discovered all of the extra photos included on the J-card.
Over the past few years, music has come to be one of the topics I am most passionate about. I spend my free time learning about bands and music history, listening to albums to understand their importance, and finding new artists to add to my collection. My fascination comes at an inopportune moment, though. Like much of the arts, the music industry is currently in a transitional period due to the rise of AI.
What once took years of dedication by a team of people to create and produce can now be done by one person as easily as typing out a sentence. Is this the natural progression in music technology, a soon ubiquitous tool the likes of MIDI or drum machines, or is it foreshadowing to a dystopian technofeudal future?
Spotify: Bringing Music to the Masses
I can honestly say that I don’t remember how I listened to music before Spotify. There were songs and bands that were important to me, but I can not fathom how I listened to them without streaming. Presumably, I would listen to these songs only when I sought them out. Instead of being able to unconsciously play music in the background of my day, each listen would be an intentional act.
The first year I had a Spotify account, I listened to about 33 hours of music, but after a year of getting accustomed to on-demand music, that number jumped to 655 hours. Music is more accessible now than ever before in history. Any time you want, you can drown out the noise of life around you and escape into a world of sonic bliss.
Spotify has been an integral part of this transformation in music consumption, but to understand its contributions, we must go back to some of the music industry’s darkest days. In the 90s and early 2000s when culture began shifting to a digital landscape, the record industry had not yet caught up, still focusing their efforts on physical releases. This oversight left a gap in the market for piracy websites like Napster and LimeWire to provide a way for people to download and share music online, all with the added benefit of supplying the music for no cost to consumers. Because of these sites, revenue for the record industry began to decline. They needed a solution to keep the industry afloat, and fast.
In 2006, on the heels of the peak year of peer-to-peer file sharing, Swedish developers sought to create a platform where music could be shared online legally. The company, Spotify, launched in 2008, and by 2009, the music industry had ownership over 20% of it. In 2011 the company expanded to the United States, and by 2012, the music industry finally started to see an increase in revenue for the first time since 1999. Streaming services have only continued to grow since then, now representing 82% of all music revenue in the United States.
Streaming has proved to be unequivocally beneficial for the record industry at large. However, the more cemented it becomes in our culture, the more questions begin to arise about how beneficial it is to those of us outside of the executive’s office. Streaming has a chokehold on music consumption of this generation, and Spotify - being the most popular of the streaming services - is presented with a unique opportunity to influence how we listen to music.
For generations, music existed as albums. Sure, the radio would play the new hit single, but if you wanted any control over your listening, the options were limited. When music piracy came on the scene, however, the game changed. Now you could download only the songs you wanted, no longer beholden to the released singles. When the iPod arrived in 2004, offering a legal alternative to the tune of 79¢ per song, this new way of listening was solidified . With incentive to cherry-pick songs, the album had been successfully broken down. When Spotify came onto the market, the music world was in prime position for a structural shake-up.
All Hail the Algorithm
Prioritization of individual songs meant an increase in playlists, both user-created and Spotify curated. In 2021, only 10-20% of listening on Spotify was from a source other than a playlist, exemplifying the increasingly individualistic approach towards music. When you remove songs from the larger context of an album, an element of the artistry is removed, and music becomes more easily commodified. Now, instead of having to hold your attention for a full 45 minutes, an artist needs only to keep you engaged for three and a minutes. And in a world of social media culture and short form content, this is vital for success.
As the internet developed, our attention spans deteriorated, with the average period of engagement falling from two and a half minutes in 2004 to about 47 seconds within the last decade. This decline is reflected in music produced today as well, with average runtimes for songs dropping by a minute and 42 seconds from 1990 to 2020. In 1991 Nirvana had a hit with "Smells Like Teen Spirit", which clocked in at 5:01, the top song so far this year, “Choosin' Texas" by Ella Langley is two minutes shorter. By decreasing song length, artists can both maintain the retention rates that support their careers, and also cater to the algorithms that define pop culture today.
Short form content platforms such as Tik Tok have replaced fading cultural icons like MTV, with the company becoming one of the leading forces behind an artist’s success. In 2024, 84% of songs on the Billboard 200 were first viral on Tik Tok before filtering into mainstream music.
Tik Tok is a self fulfilling prophecy, redefining the musical landscape of today. It has contributed to the distracted and disinterested nature of the current generation that craves gratification in 30 second intervals, generating demand for music broken down into viral moments, further enforcing the dominance of short form content.
If an artist wants to find success, the easiest way is to create music that caters to the algorithm. When listening to music on Spotify, once you run out of songs on the playlist or album you are listening to, it will recommend new songs. By creating songs that have the same hallmarks as other songs in its genre, there are benefits both for the artist and Spotify. The artist will see more playtime on the service, and Spotify can keep listeners engaged with their platform for longer, generating more clicks and securing monthly subscriptions.
Due to the reliance on algorithms, Spotify is presented with a unique opportunity to skew listeners towards practices that prove to be most profitable. The platform can provide over 100 million songs, but within this lies the inherent drawback of choice paralysis. The overwhelming amount of music that exists nowadays makes it hard to find the things you want, leading to algorithms that will lighten the burden by choosing what is best for you with little to no brain power required from you to make the decision.
In the days before streaming, you were never guaranteed the perfect listening experience. The only way to expand your taste was to rely on the opinions of others, simultaneously creating a stronger connection based on common interest. Now, in place of this social interaction, Spotify uses algorithms to create listening experiences tailored specifically to your taste. Rather than music being a tool to connect with other people and create culture, it has started being used to create increasingly isolated musical experiences. With the popularization of generative AI, this practice of personalized music interaction has gone even further, creating not playlists, but the songs themselves.
“Move Fast, Break Things”
For decades, the music industry has slowly been removing human artistry in music in favor of bigger profits. It began with disconnecting songs from their larger stories, then moved into condensing music into its flashiest elements, and now the need for human involvement in music has been eliminated entirely.
Using generative AI, you can create precisely what you want to hear at any given moment without having to dedicate the time into finding the artist that is just right, or into developing the skills required to compose the music yourself. Mikey Schulman, founder of the generative music platform Suno, believes that music is not a fun or engaging enough experience for the listener or the artist. It takes too long for songs to be created, and once they exist there is nothing you can do except listen. The goal of Suno is to make music a participatory act on behalf of the consumer. Now, regardless of talent or time, anyone with an idea can become a musician.
While this vision of a future where art is accessible to anyone may be at first awe-inspiring, in reality it speaks to the growing normalization of stagnation. Generative AI can only create based on things that already exist, producing an amalgamation of what came before with no intent on expanding what is possible. If we come to rely on AI to do the creation for us, we become trapped in a cultural vacuum that refuses to challenge us. By embracing music stripped down to its barest, most commodifiable parts, we are placing the innately human act of creation into the hands of technology and those who own it. Succumbing to the widespread implementation of AI means relinquishing autonomy over your life to the control of those willing to do anything in the name of advancement.
This is not to say that streaming is inherently evil and the only real way to experience music is physically. The convenience of having nearly every song ever recorded sitting in your pocket is undeniable. But when I bought my cassette player, I came to realize that there was a fundamental flaw in how I was listening. Music is not something to be passively consumed. It has historically been art created intentionally by people who are passionate. And it was meant to be experienced in its entirety. Music can fuel a generation, not just reflecting culture, but propelling it forwards.
The future of music may seem bleak, but in the face of unending soulless content you have the choice to consume consciously. The next time you feel like filling space with something mindless, I challenge you to listen to an album. Dedicate the time to actively engage with the music, to truly experience it. The task may seem daunting at first, but a more involved approach can change everything. It can mean the difference between being swept along by the algorithm and helping restore music as a true expression of the human spirit.
Mending Is Better Than Ending
DOMINO CLABORN
My family has a particular fascination with older cars. Our driveway is filled with wacky and unusual vehicles, the kind that make you double-take whenever you drive past them on the road. And as long as I can remember, we have always gravitated towards these cars. I bought one recently, and even though it may not get great gas mileage compared to a newer car, or have CarPlay, it does have a lot of personality. And seeing how much my friends with new vehicles are having to pay for insurance, I don’t mind having to pay a little extra for gas.
It’s easy to overlook how much of our lives revolve around cars. We design our cities around cars. We buy cars to have the freedom of going where we want when we want. Our economy practically revolves around the price of gas. And yet, about half of all car owners cite cars as a source of financial stress.
In fact, the average American spends about 20% of their yearly income on car-related expenses, when experts recommend spending no more than 10% of your income. People are trying to find ways to soften blows of increasing premiums and car payments, but they are so dependent on their car that they are willing to bite the bullet.
Given that high expenses are taking such a big toll on owners, it might not be a bad idea to explore some other options. This is what was going through my mind when I was looking for a car. I chose the used route so that it is fully paid off, the insurance is cheap, and even though I cringe whenever I see how much a tank of gas costs, it beats the monthly payments other people are having to pay.
The used car market sees about 40 million sales per year, which is over two times the sales of new cars. Used cars are cheaper to buy, and have a much larger market than new cars, yet so many people are hesitant to buy them. Why push your finances to the point of ruin instead of buying secondhand? Is there really that much stigma around buying an older car?
Imagine this: the year is 1970. You just got a bonus from your run-of-the-mill office job. You want to have some fun with this extra cash. So what do you do? You buy a new car, of course! Back then, it didn’t cost an arm and a leg to buy new. Typically, a new car in 1970 cost somewhere between $2,500 and $3,500, which was only about three months' salary for a working class American family. Needless to say, the market was much different than it is today.
The landscape of the 1970s car market was much more focused on the consumer. Manufacturers were chasing fuel-efficient, low cost family vehicles, partly because of the ongoing energy crisis, but also because those were the types of cars consumers wanted and needed. It used to be more of an expectation that car owners would take maintenance into their own hands, and the simple mechanics of the cars from this era complimented this. Cars nowadays are much too complicated for the average person to take a wrench to. Sellers have even stopped putting repair manuals in gloveboxes. Car design used to be more minimalistic, to say the least.
Consumers care about balancing cost with comfort. When manufacturers make every new model a status symbol rather than something that gets you from point A to point B, it harms those that rely on the budget options, or people who just want a reliable gas saver.
One thing that modern car manufacturers could take from the old car market is that not every car needs to be a luxury vehicle. Engineering may have come a long way in the last 50 years, but the values that classic car manufacturers had are desperately needed today. New cars are designed to be as user-unfriendly as possible in order to make as much money for dealerships as they can. And from that perspective, I would argue that old is gold.
So the car market has suffered a drastic change in its focus, one which can be traced back to a central event. The 2008 Financial Crisis was a period of general economic decline, affecting both America and the world at large. The car market was hit especially hard, with automotive manufacturers citing a 40% drop in sales. Both General Motors and Chrysler filed for bankruptcy, and to prevent a total collapse of the market, the government created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which authorized government bailouts to the tune of $82 billion for the auto market.
They had managed to save the industry, but it was still on the brink of collapse. So the government went a little further, and created the Car Allowance Rebate system, more commonly known as Cash For Clunkers. Essentially, taking your old, “gas guzzling” car into a dealership could earn you credit towards a new car. Any car that got 18 mpg or less qualified for credit, and you could get anywhere between $3,500 and $4,500, depending on how much of an improvement your new car was compared to your old one. The government would then compensate the dealership for the credit.
To prevent these cars from ever returning to the road, dealers would then drain the oil, and replace it with a mixture of sodium silicate and water, also known as liquid glass, to seize the engine. There was a 180-day period starting from the moment the clunker was traded in when dealers could part out pieces from the car. After this period, the car was to be scrapped and crushed to prevent any further salvage. Over 677,000 usable and drivable cars were destroyed in order to make way for a new generation of cars; ones that are more expensive to buy and repair, and the same ones that caused the high prices we see today.
When Cash For Clunkers pulled those old, "inefficient" cars off of the road, the assumption was that they would be replaced with more reliable models that put less waste into the environment. After all, clunkers were not eligible for a trade-in unless they got bad gas mileage. But, instead of keeping its focus on family-oriented commuter cars, the industry shifted towards much larger SUVs and full-sized trucks. SUVs accounted for more than 60% of new vehicle registrations in 2025. And yet, the light truck category of vehicle (which includes SUVs and trucks) only achieves an average of 17 mpg. If Cash For Clunkers truly aimed at putting cleaner, economical cars on the road, the best selling cars of today would meet the same standards that were set in 2008.
But this is corporate America! Why would car companies continue to put in the effort to keep the more cost efficient sedans on the market, when they can just sell crossovers and SUVs instead? After all, the average price of an SUV is $50,000, netting much more profit for sellers than sedans, which typically go for a little over $30,000. With a profit difference of 20 grand, it's no wonder that entry level vehicles are disappearing.
There are other factors influencing the cost to own new vehicles since 2008, as well. In the past 30 years, there has been a massive increase in features included in new cars. New tech like touchscreens, sensors, and driver’s assist all require expensive hardware and software in order to implement it in a car. For some, these features add to the driving experience. For others, not so much. Regardless, they make the car more mechanically complicated.
Something like an infotainment in a modern car is a lot harder and more expensive to repair than physical knobs and buttons that dashboards once had. Infotainment systems are more beneficial for car manufacturers since they are more cost effective to make than physical controls, and are much more expensive for the buyer to replace if they are broken. And with dealerships now making more attempts to block car owners from going to independent repair shops, it feels like people are being backed into a corner.
The entire business model is starting to look like a scam: upfront costs are expensive and unreasonable, pricey repairs are inevitable, and the only place that is allowed to fix your car is the dealership. This planned obsolescence has been the norm since the restructure of the market in 2008. And based on the direction we are heading, it will only get worse from here.
Now, I haven’t painted a very flattering picture of new cars. In truth, they have many redeeming qualities. With every passing year, cars are including more and more safety features integrated into their designs in order to better protect people in and around the car. For one, current vehicles have much safer crash protection, from collapsing steering columns, to airbags, to crumple zones. And with modern safety features like ABS, emergency braking, and blind spot detection, it is a lot harder to get into a crash in the first place.
Engines are also much more fuel efficient now, which means you can spend more time driving and less time fueling up. And with the popularization of hybrids and EVs, visits to the gas station have never been less frequent.
They also offer many comfort and convenience features, such as heated seats and steering wheels, adaptive climate control, and wireless connectivity for devices. But what draws most people to buying new cars is the peace of mind. You don’t have to worry about possible breakdowns, or stress about how a previous owner may have abused your car. In addition, warranties give your bank account a nice buffer in case any issues do pop up after your purchase. So if you can get over the high price tag, new cars are actually a pretty decent investment.
They’re also meant to be an investment in protecting our environment. EVs have had a surge in popularity, and with the marketing surrounding them, it seems like they are the only choice if you are looking to be friendly to our planet. But the gap between new and used might not be as wide as the advertising makes it seem.
When you look at tailpipe emissions alone, EVs are obviously the better choice. Where gas-powered cars create exhaust, EVs have none. But there's more to it than tailpipe emissions. Thanks in part to their battery cells, EVs have a much larger environmental impact during the manufacturing process than traditional internal combustion vehicles.
Precious materials like lithium, nickel, and cobalt that are needed for batteries are costly, and create vast carbon emissions to harvest. And while you might think that making the batteries is a one-time event, a “carbon debt,” if you will; but that might not be true. Battery cells last eight to twelve years in optimal conditions: perfect temperature, good cooling, and chemicals kept in balance. Something as little as a cooling fan shorting out could cut its lifespan in half.
EVs and Hybrids as a whole also have fewer reusable parts than their gas-powered counterparts, and only about five percent of lithium ion batteries are being recycled. And as a side note, EVs are only as green as the energy used to charge them, so in many cases, they are still powered by fossil fuels. For a category of vehicles known for clean energy, EVs are, in reality, quite wasteful.
Lets compare that to used cars. Used cars will never match up to an EV or hybrid’s fuel efficiency, but there are more factors than miles per gallon. Starting off, buying a used car supports an industry that is using existing resources. In the same way that Cash For Clunkers wasted usable vehicles, buying a used car, in a way, would be recycling them. Avoiding the high energy burden of manufacturing a new car can help the environment more than buying an EV. Not only are repairs better for your wallet, but replacement parts may be stored in bulk, or can be parted-out, so that more do not need to be manufactured.
When it gets down to the nitty gritty, new cars do not seem like such a better alternative to used cars. Every year, new cars deliver on less and less of their promises, while the market surrounding them only becomes harder to navigate. And if you want to look at used cars from purely a cost perspective, used cars’ lower monthly payments, lower insurance, and cheap repair costs make them a perfect choice for someone who wants to save money.
Since there isn’t much difference in performance between new and used cars, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to avoid new cars entirely. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be a little wary of used cars. Being careful about which car you buy is crucial. Used cars aren’t perfect, but choosing the right one can save you thousands.
One final thought before you go. People are being priced out of the new car market, and wary of dipping their toes into the used market. It’s a problem that people are being forced out in the first place. The auto industry is prioritizing profits over the consumer (this is not an issue specific to the auto industry, but I digress).
What needs to change in order to get back on the right track? For starters, government legislation needs to pull its focus away from corporations, and put it back on the average American. People don’t want environmental puff pieces in the form of electric vehicles; they want affordable commuter cars that they can drive to and from work. Instead of making it easier for companies to make trucks and SUVs, the government should give incentives for safer, efficient cars. Manufacturers should take a play from the 1970s playbook and build cars for everyday Americans. I wouldn’t count on things to change, though. In the meantime, let’s focus on the stuff we have. Go out and buy a used car. After all, mending is better than ending.