I wish we could have a cheap no-frills car like the VW Santana in China. No anti-lock brakes, no side airbags, no navigation, no power windows, no cruise control, completely recyclable, disposable basic transportation car. Lease it for $300 a month for 3 years. 75K mile limit and full warranty. You turn it in, they recycle the body and the good parts, re-manufacture the engine and other rebuildable parts, issue a new VIN number, scrap what's no good, and lease it out again.
If a car company could figure out how to do that, it would be a true people's car. I'm no Nazi, but I think it's about time someone came up with a People's Car idea that would work on this lease-type basis.
Toyota could do this with the Yaris sedan. GM could do it with the Aveo. Hyundai and Kia have the Accent and Rio. Nissan has the Versa. Honda has the Fit. Ford has the Fiesta. Chrysler is about to have some small Fiats otherwise they could use the Caliber. They could lease them out for a flat $300 a month, oil changes every 5000 miles included. Inspections and checkups on brakes and other systems included. Lessor pays for parts for other maintenance items like air filters, fuel filters, brake pads and shoes, wiper blades, etc etc...
Is this too socialist in thinking? I think every manufacturer could benefit from this. They make $10,800 every 36 months on every one they lease. Less the build cost, the maintenance, the overhead. Once each vehicle is remanufactured and resold once or maybe twice, they'd be ahead already.