Pricing Comparison

[Arakash]

There is only one other car maker selling a pickup in the city which is only rated 11, and sells for a whopping $13,225 !!!! They only sold 4 last month.

Company 1 - $11,013, sold 4, rating 22
Company 2 - $ 4,889, sold 12, rating 18
Company 3 - $ 4,187, sold 0, rating 9
Company 4 - $ 3,555, sold 10, rating 10
Company 5 - $ 4,917, sold 10, rating 9
Company 6 - $ 1,865, sold 0, rating 12

I'm trying to figure out a strategy based on these figures.

The average price of Touring car is $5,071

The average number sold is merely 6

One problem i noticed immediately, the vehicle price of 10k sounds like a bug (though it may just be a super rich people truck.
Either way, it is clearly moving your average higher.
A much fairer average price for the vehicles you listed would probably exclude that one, and be something like 4k.

Back to the question: what strategy to use?

It almost seems to me that the AI is rewarding Company #1 with the greatest profit margin with the lease number of cars sold (of the companies that actually sold cars) by simply cranking up the price. That does not seem right.

My crappy pickup truck has a rating of 19 which is not far off in rating... I am sure that I could build a Touring car with a 22 rating or better. But COULD I really sell it for $11k ????

This is actually one of the things i like about the game. There is no clear answer to this kind of question.
Why?
Afaik, this is because the population is based on real income distribution, based on the per capita on the map.

To my understanding, a vehicle priced at 3k when the per capita is 500(6x per caita) is selling to a vastly different demographic than a vehicle selling at 10k when the per capita is 500 (20x per capita).
Obviously you can make a much higher margin, but there are FAR fewer people in the richer demographics.

Both are entirely valid strategies.

My question is why would the AI build such an expensive car that is significantly higher priced?

The answer to that may be extremely simple, i suspect it is either a bug, or a vehicle designed and priced for the super rich.