The Budget New Car Has Disappeared in Germany
Car prices have risen faster than wages, making them unaffordable for many and sowing frustration.
An Opel car key at the Auto Feix second-hand dealership in Bochum, Germany in November.
Photographer: Max Slobodda/Bloomberg
In the gritty German industrial city of Bochum, a family-run car dealership once counted small affordable vehicles as its bread and butter, but it has adapted to deepening inequalities by no longer selling factory-fresh hatchbacks and wagons at all.
Sticker prices on new models have risen faster than wages in recent years, adding to other cost-of-living increases on everything from housing to food and energy. The combination has squeezed spending power and put new vehicles out of reach for Auto Feix’s working-class clientele in Bochum, once the home of a thriving budget-car factory.