The cost of the cheapest Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz vehicles has more than doubled in the past decade, and today, people need to earn up to R37,000 more per month to afford the same car as in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2025, more than 70% of all the cars in South Africa now cost more than R500,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One key reason for this spike concerns the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw car factories around the world shut down and lay off workers when lockdown restrictions were enforced, and the demand for cars dropped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the easing of restrictions, consumer spending quickly rebounded, while production was slower to return to pre-Covid levels. This created a supply-and-demand problem, leading to inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In South Africa, the poor performance of the local economy and the rand\/US dollar exchange rate have magnified this effect, making it exponentially more expensive to import and sell vehicles here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To reflect the magnitude of vehicle price increases, BusinessTech looked at the prices of an Audi A1, BMW 1-Series, and Mercedes-Benz A-Class in 2015 compared to today in 2025 and how much you would need to afford them in their respective time periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2015, an A1 1-Series, and a A-Class cost R265,000, R342,000, and R389,200, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to financing experts, individuals should spend no more than 25% of their monthly income on vehicle-related costs, which means they would require an estimated salary of between R23,000 per month for the A1 and up to R35,000 per month for the A-Class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This assumes the cars are financed over five years (60 months) at an annual interest rate of 10.75%, with a 0% deposit or balloon payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fast-forward to 2025, and the vehicles now cost R530,900, R713,395, and R813,124, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All three have doubled in price, which means that to afford the same cars, one must increase their salary by up to R36,658 per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To put this into perspective, the entry-level VW Polo is now R373,800, which is only R15,400 or 4% less than the Mercedes-Benz A-Class back in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The increase in the cost of this Mercedes-Benz vehicle is more than double the inflation rate over the same period (66.1%), showing the rapid and unsustainable increases in car prices over the past decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s worse is that salaries have just kept up with inflation since 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Stats SA, the average formally employed non-agricultural worker in 2014 earned an average of R17,387 per month, which has increased to R28,231 per month in 2025, representing an increase of 62%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This massive increase in prices is one of the several reasons why premium European car brands have seen a notable drop in sales over the same period, as outlined by the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sales for Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW have more than halved in the last decade, with total sales declining from 74,015 at the end of 2014 to 23,881 at the end of 2024\u2014a concerning 68% decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The biggest loser was Mercedes-Benz, dropping 82% to 5,048 sold units in 2024 from 28,993. This was followed by Audi (-70%) and then BMW and Mini (-50%).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The cost of the cheapest Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz vehicles has more than doubled in the past decade, and so has the salary you need to afford them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":807818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[7883,5365,9130,853],"class_list":["post-832082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-audi","tag-bmw","tag-mercedes-benz","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832082"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":832204,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832082\/revisions\/832204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Car<\/th> Starting price 2015<\/th> Starting price 2025<\/th> Change<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Mercedes-Benz A-Class<\/td> R389,200<\/td> R813,124<\/td> +R423,924 (109%)<\/td><\/tr> BMW 1-Series<\/td> R342,000<\/td> R713,395<\/td> +R371,395 (109%)<\/td><\/tr> Audi A1 <\/td> R265,000<\/td> R530,900<\/td> +R265,900 (100%)<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Car<\/th> Income 2015 (pm)<\/th> Income 2025 (pm)<\/th> Change<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Mercedes-Benz A-Class<\/td> R34,035<\/td> R70,693<\/td> +R36,658 pm <\/td><\/tr> BMW 1-Series<\/td> R29,954<\/td> R62,069<\/td> +R32,115 pm <\/td><\/tr> Audi A1 <\/td> R23,295<\/td> R46,288<\/td> +R22,993 pm <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n