Quite a few people buy cars just because they need to get places and there’s not good alternatives. Otherwise why would cars like the Sentra or CRV exist? Just making it so those folks don’t need to buy one would do a lot to make cars more luxurious and fashionable.
Those are fine examples to prove my point. Even the low-end, just-get-around cars have climate controls, entertainment systems, and plush seating. They’re about more than utility, just getting from one place to another. For the CRV, the web site for it really wants to sell the image of adventure, like driving one means you’re ready to head out on road trips, and listen to the Bose sound system while doing so. The base model is also 190hp. The Sentra is 149hp, and over $20,000 base price. Compare that to the Ford Model T, at around $6,000 (inflation adjusted). That was 20hp. Twenty horsepower, no air conditioning, no power steering, no Apple CarPlay, and people drove them across the continent.
Anyway, I just got home from some errands, and while out, I saw a guy driving a big, shiny, white Ford Model F truck, and wearing a cowboy hat. There are no cattle ranches in Wisconsin. Also, it’s January and he wasn’t wearing a coat; he doesn’t plan to go outside. The car one drives is totally a fashion statement. Driving a low-end car conveys a message about you, just like wearing off-the-rack versus bespoke clothes. Even Warren Buffett’s econobox is a statement.
And that’s leaving aside the assumption that getting from place to place has to involve a car.
People also used to sleep in houses made of sod with mud floors and wood fire heating. But we don’t now because that’s not very nice, despite it being incredibly energy intensive to light, heat, and cool a whole house and refrigerate parts of it and have thinking machines just to play games on.
I want cars to be luxurious and fashionable but not necessary. I think it will lead to cars that look and drive better, and fewer people on the roads will make driving more fun.
I’m with you on that last bit. The problem that we have with cars is the way that almost everybody is forced to use one for every trip to go anywhere, or at least forced to own a car for many trips. We can’t sustain that economically (I believe that car ownership is a financial burden for around 1/4 of Americans, and our infrastructure rates at D+ nationally), ecologically (climate change is only part of it, the direct ecological destruction is also enormous), and even psychologically (the loneliness epidemic). I’d be over-the-moon if everybody had a choice of a convenient alternative to a single-passenger car for any trip that they wanted to do, with cars as the luxury alternative.
Quite a few people buy cars just because they need to get places and there’s not good alternatives. Otherwise why would cars like the Sentra or CRV exist? Just making it so those folks don’t need to buy one would do a lot to make cars more luxurious and fashionable.
Those are fine examples to prove my point. Even the low-end, just-get-around cars have climate controls, entertainment systems, and plush seating. They’re about more than utility, just getting from one place to another. For the CRV, the web site for it really wants to sell the image of adventure, like driving one means you’re ready to head out on road trips, and listen to the Bose sound system while doing so. The base model is also 190hp. The Sentra is 149hp, and over $20,000 base price. Compare that to the Ford Model T, at around $6,000 (inflation adjusted). That was 20hp. Twenty horsepower, no air conditioning, no power steering, no Apple CarPlay, and people drove them across the continent.
Anyway, I just got home from some errands, and while out, I saw a guy driving a big, shiny, white Ford Model F truck, and wearing a cowboy hat. There are no cattle ranches in Wisconsin. Also, it’s January and he wasn’t wearing a coat; he doesn’t plan to go outside. The car one drives is totally a fashion statement. Driving a low-end car conveys a message about you, just like wearing off-the-rack versus bespoke clothes. Even Warren Buffett’s econobox is a statement.
And that’s leaving aside the assumption that getting from place to place has to involve a car.
People also used to sleep in houses made of sod with mud floors and wood fire heating. But we don’t now because that’s not very nice, despite it being incredibly energy intensive to light, heat, and cool a whole house and refrigerate parts of it and have thinking machines just to play games on.
I want cars to be luxurious and fashionable but not necessary. I think it will lead to cars that look and drive better, and fewer people on the roads will make driving more fun.
I’m with you on that last bit. The problem that we have with cars is the way that almost everybody is forced to use one for every trip to go anywhere, or at least forced to own a car for many trips. We can’t sustain that economically (I believe that car ownership is a financial burden for around 1/4 of Americans, and our infrastructure rates at D+ nationally), ecologically (climate change is only part of it, the direct ecological destruction is also enormous), and even psychologically (the loneliness epidemic). I’d be over-the-moon if everybody had a choice of a convenient alternative to a single-passenger car for any trip that they wanted to do, with cars as the luxury alternative.
I like how you cite cars which are fairly reasonable options when the Mitsubishi Mirage exists.
I have one of those! Its a manual!
I thought about getting one but then I watched the crash test of a pickup hitting the side and read that they have the most deaths is any vehicle.
I sorta feel like getting hit by a pickup in anything is a bad time but I will say it is a very small car and very light.
I was gonna mention it but thankfully it’s been discontinued