Ok but you begin with mean and end with median I think you’re right though: when I made less money and tried to spend less on my car, it wasn’t really feasible: income distributions are far more skewed than car expenses, even considering Veblen brands
I was wondering about average vs median too. A quick search suggests that it is hard to get the median car cost per year. Everybody just cites the AAA report which only provides the average. It would be better if they provided the median.
Came to say mean vs median as well. The interesting thing is that the AAA stats seem to include vehicle depreciation for 4k, which got me wondering. The linked article suggests that The method is in this article which them says "5 models in 9 categories... averaged ... cost of a new car in 2024"