New Cars Have Become Luxury Items

This is an inevitable consequence of vehicles lasting longer. The typical new vehicle will stay on the road ~24 years (excluding accidents). The average age of a vehicle on the road in US today is 12 years. If the top quartile buys a new vehicle every 5 years, then that is all the vehicles you need. Of course it does not, and the market is still growing, etc. But the reality is that the average new car buyer is getting older and richer and there are a much larger number of vehicles on the resale market which is more than 3x the size. The result is average new vehicle prices will rise.