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In today's issue:
$10,000-$15,000 now buys a used car nearly nine years old with about 98,000 miles
Rivian says the R3 will cost "materially lower" than the R2, which starts at $45,000
McLaren is offering 0% financing on the quarter-million-dollar Artura
Lower federal fuel economy standards arrive Monday
THE USED-CAR SQUEEZE
A used car priced between $10,000 and $15,000 now averages almost nine years old with about 98,000 miles, per an Edmunds study reported by The Drive. In 2019 the same money bought a car four years younger with 40,000 fewer miles.
The cheap end of the lot is shrinking. Cars under $20,000 fell from 55.2% of used sales in Q2 2019 to 31.8% in Q2 2026, and cars under $15,000 fell from 31.6% to 17.8%, per Edmunds via TheTruthAboutCars. Used cars at $50,000 or more nearly quadrupled, from 2.3% to 8.3%.
The average three-year-old used car sold for $32,461 in Q2, a record for the quarter, up 4% from a year earlier and 15.5% from Q2 2021, per The Drive.
Buyers are paying it anyway: those three-year-old cars spent an average of 38 days on dealer lots in Q2 2026, the same as in Q2 2025, per Edmunds.
The shortage traces to cars never built during the 2020-21 production stoppages, and to leasing, which fell from about 4 million deals a year to roughly 2.5 million and cut off the flow of low-mileage off-lease cars, per Autoblog.
New-car transaction prices have hovered around $50,000, per The Drive, which made the used lot the budget option. At $12,000, that option is now a nine-year-old car, and with three-year-old cars still selling in 38 days, demand is holding even at record prices.
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Also worth knowing
Rivian Says the R3 Will Cost "Materially Lower" Than the R2: CEO RJ Scaringe told The New York Times the R3 will undercut the R2, which runs $45,000 to $57,990, and that a cheaper R4 will follow, per Carscoops. Rivian hasn't announced R3 pricing; the most range-focused R3 is expected to top 300 miles. #market
Photo: Rivian
Lower Fuel Economy Standards Arrive Monday: Trump promoted new CAFE standards in a Saturday social media post, and a U.S. official confirmed they will be released Monday, Sept. 28, per Automotive News. If the final rule matches last year's proposal, the 2031 requirement drops to 34.5 mpg from about 50. NHTSA's own analysis of that proposal put the cost at $185 billion in added fuel spending and 5% more carbon emissions, per Electrek, though Congress already cut the fine for missing a CAFE target to $0, so automakers face no penalty under the current rules either. The rule lands as diesel sits at a record high and gasoline at its highest September level ever, per Automotive News. #news
Your Insurer's App May Soon Score Your Driving: LexisNexis Risk Solutions and IMS are pairing LexisNexis's Drive Metrics scoring with IMS's EdgeSDK so an insurer's existing phone app can score driving without a plug-in dongle, per Carscoops. The phone calculates the score and sends it on for pricing and underwriting, and LexisNexis claims the setup cuts the cost of running a usage-based program by 50% to 80%. Drivers must opt in, but LexisNexis hasn't said which phone behaviors it scores or how it tells a passenger from the driver, and no insurer has been named. #news
Dealership Buyers Are Betting on a Stellantis Comeback: Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep franchises each changed hands 29 times in the second quarter and Ram 28 times, the most of any brands and up from 18 to 20 a year earlier, per Automotive News data. Buy-sell experts point to lower store values after a seven-year US sales slump and CEO Antonio Filosa's plan for 11 new nameplates in North America by 2030. Separately, starting Oct. 1 Stellantis will bar dealers from advertising new Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram vehicles below a set minimum price, per CBT News. #analyst
Photo: HJUdall / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Zoox Pulls Its Atlanta Test Fleet Over Possible Gas Exposure: Zoox has stopped running test vehicles in Atlanta after contract safety drivers reported feeling sick inside the gasoline Toyota Highlanders that train its software, per TechCrunch and The Auto Wire. Zoox told OSHA that 28 employees rode in six vehicles with an unexplained odor, while an OSHA letter put possible exposures as high as 40. Zoox says it detected only carbon dioxide and plans in-cabin gas monitors; OSHA has closed its inquiry, and the purpose-built robotaxis aren't involved. #news
Photo: 9yz / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
GM's US-Made Rare-Earth Magnets Are About to Arrive: GM is set to begin receiving its first rare-earth supplies from MP Materials, five years after it backed the supplier, per Autoblog. MP's "Independence" factory in Fort Worth, where equipment runs above 1,000 degrees Celsius, turns ore from its Mountain Pass mine into EV motor magnets; MP says Mountain Pass is the only rare-earth mine and refinery in the Western Hemisphere, per InsideEVs. #analyst
Reveals & culture
Tesla's Roadster Patent Hides a 700 kg Active Wing: A newly published USPTO filing shows a two-piece active rear wing generating up to 700 kg of downforce, cutting drag, or retracting before a crash, days ahead of the next-gen Roadster's Oct. 1 reveal, per AutoGuide and Electrek. #enthusiast
Photo: Smnt / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Only One Late-Model Car in Five Comes in an Actual Color: Across more than 12 million 1- to 5-year-old used cars, 19.6% were something other than black, white, gray or silver, per iSeeCars. Alaska is the most colorful state at 28.3%, Mississippi and Hawaii tie for least at 15.5%, and among big metros Cleveland-Akron (22.3%) and Detroit (22.0%) lead while Los Angeles (15.7%) finishes last. #culture
Quick links
McLaren Is Offering 0% Financing on the Artura: A dealer bulletin cited by CarsDirect shows 0% APR over 36 months on the quarter-million-dollar hybrid supercar, a deal running since July, while McLaren reportedly plans to drop the Artura in 2028, per Road & Track.
Photo: McLaren
NHTSA Wants to Delete Two Crash Tests: An Aug. 17 notice would drop the Fishhook rollover maneuver and a side-airbag test from the 5-Star ratings program starting with model year 2027, while the upgrades meant to replace them slip to late 2029; comments close Oct. 16, per The Auto Wire.
This Week in Car Podcasts: A Parts Maker Bought Without Its Name, and a Nürburgring Save: Car Curious recaps 290 episodes across 185 shows, including off-road builder Travis Riley on buying the collapsed RuffStuff Specialties and ending up with its machines and designs but not its name, and the hidden plastic water pump that put an Audi RS4 sideways at the Nürburgring with James Pumphrey in the passenger seat.
The Car Curious Weekly
Recalls & legal action
Ford Recalls 11,405 Rangers With No Fix Yet: A cracked capacitor containing suspected counterfeit materials can black out the 2026 Ranger's SYNC 4 screen and take the rearview camera with it; Ford has no remedy yet and will notify owners when one is ready, per Autoblog.
Yesterday's picks
Ford Just Stopped Building Its Best-Selling Truck for Nearly a Week: All production crews at Dearborn Truck Plant were canceled Sept. 24-29, according to a memo viewed by Reuters and reported by Automotive News.
VW Group Recalls 4 Million Vehicles Over a Corroding Steering Bolt: A corrosion-prone bolt in the steering system could, in rare cases, impair steering across VW, Audi, Seat and Skoda models worldwide, per Automotive News Europe. The US portion covers 208,724 Atlas, Tiguan and Q3 models, traced to a single failure reported outside North America in October 2024, with no crashes or injuries reported, per The Auto Wire.
Senate Delays Its Chinese Car Ban to Win Over One Holdout: Sens. Bernie Moreno and Elissa Slotkin put off their fast-track bid for a permanent ban on Chinese vehicles until next week to negotiate with Sen. Rand Paul, the lone objector; the procedure needs unanimous consent, and Slotkin put support at "99 to 1," per Reuters.
Worth a listen
One episode from Car Curious, our sister car-podcast platform, picked out of everything the shows published in the last day.
#106 - DESIGNED & BUILT (The Outer Side, also at YouTube): A fabricator walks through putting a custom cab on a bare 80 Series chassis, where everything beyond the frame has to be built from scratch.
The Outer Side
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