Vehicles under $15k are 1.6% of the market, and their share of the market has dropped over 90% since 2019. The old advice that you can get a beater and drive it in to the ground for $5k hasn’t been true for years but it still seems pervasive in personal finance spaces.
I bought used in December 2020. 6 months later, the dealership called me with an offer $3k higher than the sticker price I saw. It was madness for a while!