Cars are about to get more expensive in this country. President Donald Trump plans to impose a 25% tax on imported vehicles starting Wednesday. Parts will be subject to tariffs soon too.

That’s happening as the automotive industry is already phasing out some of its cheapest new vehicles. Specifically, the last two new models with starting prices under $20,000 could soon be gone, according to Car and Driver.

The Mitsubishi Mirage ended production in December. A company spokesperson told Marketplace that dealerships will likely have enough supply to sell the cars into this summer. Meanwhile, Nissan reportedly plans to discontinue its subcompact Versa after this year.

Those moves will continue a long-term trend among automakers toward larger, more expensive models, limiting budget-friendly options for consumers.

There’s nothing fancy about the 2024 Mitsubishi Mirage. It’s a small car available as a hatchback or a sedan. 

In the parking lot of the Mitsubishi dealership he owns near Burlington, Vermont, Tim Bedard showed the sedan version in black and listed some of its features.

“It has the power locks, the windows, cruise control, tilt steering wheel, air conditioning,” Bedard said. “It has enough amenities to make it comfortable.”

But there was no getting around the fact that there’s just not a lot of room inside. The small size, Bedard said, contributes to its real selling points.

“The beauty of the car is: price tag, warranty, fuel efficiency.”

It starts at just over $18,000, it has a 10-year warranty and the hatchback version gets 39 miles per gallon (the sedan: 37 mpg) — better than any car that isn’t a hybrid.  

And that sticker price? It’s $30,000 less than the average new car right now, according to Kelley Blue Book. So, Bedard said, it makes sense that about a third of the new vehicles he sells are Mirages.

But they’re not likely to turn many heads.

“No one’s like, ‘Oh, wow, you have a Mirage. Wow, cool,’” said Clayton Seams of Toronto, Ontario. He owns a 2021 Mirage.

Seams is an editor with the Canadian automotive publication Driving. He had some strict criteria when he was shopping for his own car: He had $15,000 cash, he wanted to buy a car without a loan or lease, and he wanted something that was easy to drive and park in the city. The Mirage fit the bill. But it has its limitations.

“It’s very noisy at highway speed, and the stereo is honestly not very good,” Seams said.

Despite that, he really likes it.

“It just felt like driving a car from the ’90s,” he said. “It was simple, it had a manual transmission.  It was charming, in a way, of how basic it was.”

But basic is not what most car buyers are looking for these days.

“We like SUVs, trucks, vehicles with just more cargo capacity,” said Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at automotive site Edmunds. “So even if it is a bit on the smaller side, it still is more of an SUV format rather than a sedan format with a trunk.”

For years now, she said, sales of larger vehicles have been climbing. Demand for affordable, smaller cars, on the other hand, has been dropping off, “despite the fact that a lot of Americans are dealing with financial difficulties right now.”

Automakers have responded to that declining demand by dropping smaller vehicles from their lineups, Caldwell said. Small hatchbacks like the Ford Fiesta, Toyota Yaris and Honda Fit have all bitten the dust in the last five years.

But the change isn’t just about consumer preferences. Bigger vehicles are more profitable for car companies. That’s because making a subcompact isn’t all that much cheaper than making an SUV, according to Patrick Olsen, editor-in-chief at Carfax.

Some newer SUVs are even built on the same platform as the old subcompacts. Honda’s HR-V, for example, is the sibling of the discontinued Honda Fit. 

“So for not a lot more cost and material in terms of aluminum or steel to build a car, they could put a higher price tag on it because there’s more demand for that vehicle,” Olsen said.

Federal fuel economy regulations play a role too. The Trump administration is reviewing them, but right now, they require smaller vehicles to get better mileage than bigger ones. Olsen said that gives carmakers an incentive to go large. 

“It is a lot easier for automakers to build bigger SUVs, bigger pickup trucks, because it’s easier to meet those standards than it is for the smallest of vehicles,” he said.

Not everyone in the car industry is on board. Burlington Mitsubishi owner Tim Bedard thinks the increasing focus on larger vehicles has thrown the new-car market out of whack.

“With the influx of SUVs and crossovers that have taken over the market, we kind of lost sight [of the fact] that life was and has gotten very expensive for most people, and [they] can’t afford an average crossover or SUV of $30,000,” he said. “What’s the consumer do now?”

At least until the summer, Bedard expects to have Mirages available on his lot. After that, a used vehicle might be the price-conscious consumer’s best option. But they’re 32% more expensive than they were just before the pandemic.