The New Car You Could Afford in 2019 Probably Costs $11,000 More Today

• New vehicle prices have climbed nearly 30% since 2019, pushing the average transaction price to $48,402 in 2025.
• The $20,000 new vehicle is gone. The $25,000 new vehicle is nearly extinct too.
• Nearly half of all new vehicles sold in 2025 went for more than $45,000, up from 22% in 2019.
• Full-size trucks and large SUVs have all but abandoned buyers who aren't spending $60,000 or more.

The $25,000 new vehicle is nearly gone

Not long ago, walking into a dealership with $25,000 in hand meant you had real options in the new-car market. Today, it means you're largely out of luck.

According to Edmunds data comparing real-world transactions in 2025 vs. 2019:

• Just 0.2% of new vehicles sold for $20,000 or less in 2025, down from 5.5% six years ago.
• Only 4.7% of new vehicles sold for $25,000 or under, compared to nearly 21% in 2019, a collapse of more than 75%.
• Vehicles under $30,000 now represent just 15% of new-vehicle sales, down from 40% in 2019.
• The sub-$35,000 segment once represented the majority of the market at 54%. Today, it accounts for fewer than 3 in 10 sales.

Even the segments built for budget buyers have shifted. In 2019, 85% of compact cars sold for $25,000 or less. By 2025, that share had fallen to 37%. Subcompact cars were the last true foothold for buyers watching every dollar, but even those have now been predominantly discontinued (Mitsubishi Mirage, Nissan Versa, Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris, etc.). More than half of all subcompact cars sold below $20,000 in 2019. In 2025, fewer than 1 in 4 of the few remaining ones did. 

For a first-time buyer, a recent college graduate or a single-income household, those numbers tell a difficult story. The new-car market has moved on without them.

Trucks and SUVs have crossed into another tax bracket

If the bottom of the market has thinned out, the top has exploded. And no segment tells that story more clearly than the vehicles Americans love most: trucks and SUVs.

Large SUVs were already expensive in 2019, with nearly 59% selling above $60,000. By 2025, that figure had climbed to 95%. The affordable large SUV no longer exists.

Full-size trucks tell the same story. In 2019, just 8% sold above $60,000. Today, nearly half do. The pickup truck that once fit a working family's budget has quietly become a luxury purchase. 

Heavy-duty trucks aren't far behind, with the share selling above $60,000 jumping from 49% to 77%. 

Luxury segments are in a different conversation entirely. Nearly 74% of luxury midsize SUVs sold above $60,000 in 2025, more than double the 36% share from 2019. Luxury large cars and luxury large SUVs? Roughly 3 in 4 now sell above $100,000. 

The numbers show just how much the market has shifted toward the high end:

• 36% of all new vehicles sold for more than $50,000 in 2025, compared to 15% in 2019.
• More than 1 in 5 new vehicles now sell above $60,000, up from 7% six years ago.
• Vehicles priced above $70,000 have more than tripled their market share, from 3.6% to 12%.

What buyers are left with

An average transaction price of $48,402 makes for a shocking headline, but it's also a signal that the new-car market has simply grown too expensive for most American households.

Those willing to go used are finding that market more picked over than before — partly because buyers priced out of new vehicles have been landing there for years, but also because of reduced supply from fewer new-car sales and a decrease in leasing, the results of the microchip shortage earlier in the decade. Used vehicle prices have dropped from their pandemic highs but haven't fully come back to earth, and used loan rates typically run higher than what's available for a new vehicle. 

Incentive programs are coming back as inventory is gradually recovering, but for most buyers, a discounted $50,000 truck is still a $50,000 truck.

Edmunds says

The price shift that began during the pandemic has not reversed. It has become the new normal. Driven by consumer preference and better margins, automakers built fewer entry-level models during that time period, and most have not moved quickly to bring entry-priced models back. The result is a market increasingly built for buyers with strong credit and high incomes.

Shoppers seeking cheaper options have fewer, less glamorous choices: They can stretch their wallets on a new vehicle, give up desirable features, or take their chances in the used market, where prices have come off their highs but haven't returned to their pre-pandemic levels. 

For those looking to stick it out on a new-car purchase, stretching has become an all-too-common practice, with 84-month+ loans making up 22.9% of financed new-car purchases in Q1 2026, an all-time high.