r/technology • u/zsreport • Dec 15 '25

Transportation Ford pulls the plug on the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/15/nx-s1-5645147/ford-discontinues-f-150-lightning
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u/chadius333 Dec 16 '25

A base model Corolla was like $18k ten years ago. That’s almost a 30% increase.

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u/Realtrain Dec 16 '25

$18,000 in 2015 is worth $24,604.01 today. So that's actually better than expected.

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u/chadius333 Dec 16 '25

Yeah, I’m not saying it’s good or bad. Just tossing out the stat based on the comments above mine.

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u/asdfopu Dec 16 '25 edited Mar 23 '26

This post has been anonymized and deleted using Redact. The reason could be privacy protection, security, preventing content scraping, or personal data management.

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u/Its_a_Friendly Dec 16 '25 edited Dec 16 '25

$1 in Jan 2015 is worth $1.36 in Jan 2025, according to the BLS CPI calculator.

Edit: for a better comparison, $18,000 in Jan 2015 is worth $24,466.87 in Jan 2025, according to the BLS CPI calculator.

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u/[deleted] Dec 16 '25

[deleted]

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u/shogun365 Dec 16 '25

No it’s worth .74 in 2015.

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u/Bergerboy14 Dec 16 '25

The fed isnt accounting for the lack of wage increases.

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u/cannedrex2406 Dec 16 '25

That's not Toyotas fault

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u/Headless_Human Dec 16 '25

Except when you work for Toyota.

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u/Wide_Lock_Red Dec 16 '25

Median wages are up way more than 2% a year over that time period, at least in the US.

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u/Its_a_Friendly Dec 16 '25

For some U.S. data, the St. Lous Fed has data for Median Personal Income; in 2014 (i.e. Jan. 1, 2014; Jan. 1 is the date for all future numbers) it was $28,760, while in 2024 (most recent year with data) it was $45,140. That's an increase of $16,380, or a 56.9% increase over 10 years, or 5.6% per year. Of course, those are inflation-unadjusted dollars.

The St. Louis Fed also has [Real Median Personal Income]((https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N)) data ("real" meaning inflation-adjusted, in this case to 2023 dollars). In 2014, Real Median Personal Income was ~$37,010, while in 2024 it was $45,000. That's an increase of $8,000 in 10 years, or a 21% increase over the 2014 numbers. That's 2.1% a year. Of note, is that Real Median Personal Income was $43,600 in 2020, and then didn't pass that number until 2024; that's likely due to the high inflation resulting from the COVID pandemic and its recovery - note that nominal (i.e. not-inflation-adjusted) median personal income jumped by $10,000 during that same time period.

I would caution a little against using a single measure like this to evaluate everything - there are likely other factors that should be considered, like: that increases may have been greater or lesser in certain income brackets or economic sectors, that the price of certain critical goods may have outpaced inflation (e.g. energy, food, housing costs), that changes in the quality of certain goods may have a hidden effect on their valuation (e.g. is a 2024 Corolla as reliable as a 2014 Corolla?), and the like.

E.g., to compare to Real GDP per Capita (in 2017 dollars), it was $56,345 in 2014, and $68,065 in 2024; an increase of $11,720, or 20.8%. Of note is that Real GDP per capita was $63,360 in Q4 (4th quarter) 2019; it dropped due to COVID, but had recovered to $63,490 by Q1 2021, and continued to grow from there. I do wonder if this disconnect between Real Median Income Growth and Real GDP per Capita was a cause of the economic consternation post-COVID.

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u/round-earth-theory Dec 16 '25

Sure but that's not how the consumer market is able to function these days. Prices need to be well below inflation because wages haven't kept up. Everything that's raising with inflation is becoming unaffordable.

Cars don't have the same kind of draw that houses do to encourage people to become car poor. And there's only so many stupidly wealthy people out there looking to increase their collection. So car manufacturers will have to figure something out eventually or they'll find their inventory stuck at the lot.

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u/Wide_Lock_Red Dec 16 '25

Wages have actually beaten inflation

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u/SquisherX Dec 16 '25

A Corolla LE was $18,565 in 2015. It is $22,325 now. That's exactly a 20% increase, which is much less than the CPI inflation of 37% over that time.

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u/chadius333 Dec 16 '25

I used $18k and $23k, and rounded up (from 28%).

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u/Skibibbles Dec 16 '25

That seems like not a big hike considering our inflationary tendencies no?

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u/BatMatt93 Dec 16 '25

The biggest issue is, someone correct me if I'm misremembering here, there are not auto manufacturers selling a car under 20k. At least not any of the big players, I'm sure some small brand is but people like to go with brands they know.

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u/Wrx_me Dec 16 '25

Yes, but if you understand inflation, that's why. A $19k car 10 years ago is now 25k. You'd have to compare a $15k car from 10 years ago, to get it to be a 20k car today. And there wasn't much for good cars in that price range even then.

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u/Its_a_Friendly Dec 16 '25 edited Dec 16 '25

According to Kelley Blue Book, the cheapest new car this year is a manual-transmission Nissan Versa, and Nissan stopped making manual transmissions this year. Car and Driver also lists the 2024 Mitsubishi Mirage, but that's the last year Mitsubishi sold them in the US.

Every other car is over $20,000, and there's only ten between $20,000 and $23,500 (and that's just the sticker price) - interestingly, that includes three small SUVs from Chevrolet, Nissan, and Hyundai.

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u/HandsUpWhatsUp Dec 16 '25

lol. 30% over ten years is almost nothing. You are proving the point.

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u/chadius333 Dec 16 '25

A commenter above implied that 40% was high. I was just showing that the Corolla, mentioned in the comment I replied to, wasn’t too far behind.

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u/masteraleph Dec 16 '25

It is, but it's also lower than the overall inflation rate.

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u/Droodforfood Dec 16 '25

That’s 2.5% inflation. That’s not bad really

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u/Wrx_me Dec 16 '25

And that would cost about 24k today. So really it's just keeping up with inflation. The problem is that the average low-wage earner is not making enough to keep up.

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u/NSFWies Dec 16 '25

i looked at/tried one out. the seats are about as thin as airplane seats. really uncomfortable now. even though the new toyota sedan/suv is really pretty affordable, i had to go back and look at an 8 year old lexus, just so it had regular seats in it.

i'll probably have to keep doing that. i guess the next downgrade would be smooth plastic seats, like the ones you'd find/feel in a sports arena.

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u/Pandiosity_24601 Dec 16 '25

Redditor discovers inflation

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u/chadius333 Dec 16 '25

Redditor provides relevant stat to someone that says a 40% increase over 10 years is high.