but 5 years ago the opposite was true, in fact people were buying here and grey marekt exporting them to the U.S. The gap is nowhere near $10K, I read a report on this recently, it varies car to car and manufacturer, it was worse on high end sports cars, on everyday cars it was maybe 5 to 10% higher than a converted U.S. price... Do you think an Accord should start at $19K? Good luck with that when you pay $19K for a Hyundai Elantra.
If you figure all the safety features that are on cars these days, the performance and fuel economy, and the manufacturers incentives, the cost adjusted price is better now than it has ever been. All cars have so many standard features as well because nobody wants a car without cruise, A/C, power everything, ABS, CD player, etc. Putting these on at the factory is more cost effective, but it puts the start price higher, so now you just don't have to add stuff piece by piece which is insanely expensive.
