Cheapest new cars in 2023 significantly more expensive

Price increases in the car world are currently following each other so quickly that news reports are sometimes outdated again after a week. That is certainly not exclusive to the smallest and cheapest new cars of the moment, but in this class every euro counts extra heavily. January 1 is a painful date in that respect, because the eight cheapest new car models in the Netherlands will all receive a higher price. Unfortunately that is quite hard. Where only a few months ago we had to conclude that 15 grand is ‘the new 10 grand’, just under €16,000 is now the absolute minimum for a brand new car with a Dutch registration. For that amount (€15,990) the same model is still available: the Mitsubishi Space Star. That little Japanese is therefore 6.7 percent more expensive than before.

The Toyota Aygo X is perhaps the best illustration of how fast things are going in this segment. The Japanese was announced this year with a starting price of €15,995, psychologically still in 15-mille regions. In August we already noted an entry price of €16,950, but from January 1 Aygo X driving is only possible for those who put at least €18,595 on the table. This means that the starting price will then be 9.7 percent higher than last summer.

Still, the Toyota isn’t even the biggest climber on the list. That dubious honor is for the Fiat Panda, which rises almost 12 percent in price with a minimum of €18,450. In hard euros we are talking about almost 2 mille, a considerable amount. The rest of the list is detailed below, always with the old and the new price, the price difference and the difference in percentages. The Volkswagen Up is a new price from September 1, so it could rise even further. For the rest of the field, we already have the prices of January 1, 2023. With the price increases, the ranking also changes. The Top-3 remains intact, but the Kia Picanto takes fourth place from the Panda. The Aygo drops to seventh place.

*as of September 2022