That actual reason for this is that cars are just hyper-reliable. The reason people wanted to buy a new bare bones car over a used nice car is the assumption that the used car would cost you in repairs.
That assumption has been dead since cash for clunkers. Even American made cars will hit 200k miles. There's ZERO value to a "new" car. You would be outright stupid to pay $10k for some probably not possible "bare bones" car when you could just buy the decade old Corolla down the street with 100k miles that's only $5k. It will even have fairly modern safety. This is true even in the modern post-COVID hyper contracted used car market.
That assumption has been dead since cash for clunkers. Even American made cars will hit 200k miles. There's ZERO value to a "new" car. You would be outright stupid to pay $10k for some probably not possible "bare bones" car when you could just buy the decade old Corolla down the street with 100k miles that's only $5k. It will even have fairly modern safety. This is true even in the modern post-COVID hyper contracted used car market.