For decades, N has been more costlier than it's more popular bigger brother. Now, compare the price of this: http://www.atlasrr.com/NFreight/nartautocarrier3.htm with its HO counterpart: http://www.atlasrr.com/HOFreight/hoartauto.htm A $20 difference?!?! Glad I made the switch!
The price difference probably has more to do with inflation than anything else. The N scale model was produced three years ago compared to HO scale model. In the smaller scales the price of raw materials contributes less to the cost of the model than do research, development, and tooling expenses. I'd say a $20 difference is simply the price differnce from having tooling made in 2006 compared to in 2003. It's obvious that the HO scale model didn't have the same development costs as the N scale one since they are the same prototype. How much plastic is really in a $60 car? Five bucks maybe.
I've noticed N scale rolling stock is generally cheaper than HO. Engines are about the same. You can get a lot more N scale in a given amount of space or in a grocery bag making N scale much more expensive in that respect.
It's not that N is getting cheaper; HO is just getting far more expensive! Especially that everything in HO is RTR these days.
I never said N scale is getting cheaper did I? You said N scale is cheaper than HO in your post title and now you've twisted your statement at me? I just said N scale rolling stock is generally cheaper than HO. You dug up one example to prove your point here. HO is getting more attention to detail and graphics driving the price up. Athearn is still making the ole blue box kits in HO and they are still the low price leader in quality. But nobody wants them. They want the highly detailed RTR stuff.
Huh? We're not debating here, so relax man. Maybe I should have used the word "Perhaps" to start the sentence of my last post. My point was directed at the HO manufacturers and not you. I'm a bitter ex-HO scaler because of the whole radius thing and now I wanna stick it to the HO world any way I can! There's no turning back now anyway, HO looks and feels clumsily large to me now.
Probably less than $0.02, even with plastic doubling in price. The costs are not in the raw materials, although acetal plastics are getting expensive. Beyond tooling, which is in the $250K range, there are assembly costs and then distribution costs. The real difference is in the size of the market. If you can make 100,000 copies, then you can spread your costs out per unit compared to making 10,000 copies. I'm pretty sure the costs for unit No. 1 are comparable between N and HO. The real difference comes in the cost for unit No. 10,000, and unit No. 100,000. Realize also that costs in China are rising just as fast, or faster, than the rest of the world.
