Owning a car involves a number of costs such as fuel, insurance, maintenance, among others. All of those aspects were affected by inflation through the last year. Of course, car prices don’t stay out of this effect. Still, there are some models that remain “affordables”.
The continued increase of prices has affected the South African economy in general. As published by the Department of Statistics, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a rate used to measure inflation, registered a 7.5% increase in September from a year earlier.
So, in this context, it is not a surprise that cars are also getting more expensive. However, the increase of car prices tends to exceed the current inflation rate, which makes people interested in buying a car, try to look for a cheap model -with low fuel consumption- to reduce some costs.
The thing about choosing economic versions of new cars, or entry-level car models, is that it helps save money in several ways. First of all, the money required to buy an entry-level model is, obviously, lower than the amount needed when choosing a more expensive model.
At the same time, it helps to reduce regular expenses related to the car, like the insurance policy. It is just trying a car insurance calculator to realize that the cost of the policy is directly related to the car price. Then, the cheaper the car valuation, the lower the insurance price.
What affordable options should someone looking to buy a new car consider?
As it was described in the New Vehicle Sales stats, published by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa), car brands -both traditional and new ones- are focused on offering more affordable models and introducing new entry-level alternatives as a mechanism to face the current economic environment.
At this moment, however, there are just 11 available car models under R 200,000. Let’s check them out:
- Suzuki S-Presso: price starts from R 156,900, fuel efficiency of 4.9l/ 100 km and low CO2 emissions.
- Baic D20: price starts from R 149,990 (75kW – 85kW, 128 NM)
- Renault Kwid 1.0 Expression: price starts from R 170,400 (50 kW – 85 kW, 91 Nm)
- Suzuki Celerio 1.0 Ga: price starts from R 174,900 (49 kW, 89 Nm)
- Datsun Go 1.2 Five: price starts from R 189,700 (50 kW, 104 Nm)
- Suzuki Swift 1.2 GA: price starts from R189,900 (61 kW, 113 Nm)
- Suzuki DZire 1.2 GA: price starts from R189,900 (61 kW, 113 Nm)
- Mahindra KUV100 Nxt 1.2 G80: price starts from R 192,999 (61 kW, 115 Nm)
- Renault Triber 1.0 Expression: price starts from R193,400 (52 kW, 96 Nm)
- Toyota Agya 1.0: price starts from R 196,100 (49kW, 89 Nm)
- Hyundai Atos 1.1 Motion: price starts from R 196,900 (50kW, 99 Nm).
