A few years ago (2013/2014?) there was a bare bones Toyota Yaris I looked at. Cheapest 'new' car on the lot, decent mpg, etc. But... no power windows or power locks, no automatically adjustable seat. And... it was, IIRC, around $15k. For $15-16k I could get something else used with more amenities, and similar mpg/economy. Or possibly even something else new at that time with better amenities. For something with so few amenities, I would have preferred at least a 20% discount compared to other options.
I purchased a Yaris iA (a Mazda2 in Toyota drag) for $12.5K new in CA in 2016 because it was a white manual transmission. Dealer didn’t even have a salesperson who could drive it.
Deals exist on unwanted vehicles for sure. The iA always sold cheaper than the actual Toyota Yaris in my experience despite being a far superior car.
GoGet.com.au have thousands of cars in their fleet and many of them are the Yaris. For a car share company that does a lot of servicing themselves out of a van it's a simple economical vehicle that is cheap to run and own. It also holds its value reasonably when they part with it after 2-3 years or 50,000km.
I bought a Yaris as my first car to go as cheap as possible. Even electrics were more expensive despite the tax breaks. My Dad felt like a new one would break down less than a used one too which is why we avoided used.
Yaris worked well in general. I'm not surprised it's popular with college kids. It was pretty bothersome, though, how at the lowest trim level they even disabled things like cruise control. I'm three times older than any college kid and it made my ankle ache on long drives.
One of my first cars was a geo metro hatchback - probably an equivalent. It was $6500 - a fortune (for me) at the time. But I did get around 50mpg. I took a long road trip across the country and averaged 64mpg.
At the same time here in New Zealand long journeys are 99% on two lane roads, with lots of corners and hills. Not sure how useful cruise control is for that.
