Looking for a new car under $20,000? Good luck.

DETROIT (AP) — Just five years ago, a price-conscious auto shopper in the United States could choose from among a dozen new small cars selling for under $20,000.

Now, there’s just one: The Mitsubishi Mirage.

And even the Mirage appears headed for the scrap yard. At a time when Americans increasingly want pricey SUVs and trucks rather than small cars, the Mirage remains the lone new vehicle whose average sale price is under 20 grand — a figure that once marked a kind of unofficial threshold of affordability.

With prices — new and used — having soared since the pandemic, $20,000 is no longer much of a starting point for a new car.

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