My hot take, which I have said over and over and over again: if we want more cool little sports cars, we need better public transit.
Because we live in a country where a vehicle has to be able to do everything because there’s usually no other option, most of the options we have for vehicles are big do-alls, AKA SUVs and crossovers. You need a car that can haul appliances and commute to work and take your kid and his friends and their fetid hockey gear to that away match and drive in bad weather and get good gas mileage because damn is it expensive when you have to drive everywhere.
Now: imagine that you didn’t have to drive to work every day- you could take a train or a bus or a bus rapid transit line or whatever. And, it was reasonably quick, comfortable enough and cost less than the gas it takes to get you to the office. And it runs in all weather so you no longer have to drive in the snow if you don’t want to. Imagine your kid’s school is not just a walkable/bikeable distance from your home, but there’s infrastructure built to keep the kids safe to and from. Imagine that we have high speed rail running between big cities and regular rail running between smaller cities and towns, so instead of having to drive to Lexington for an away game in an ice storm, you can just take the train, and the gross hockey gear is in a cargo compartment instead of 5 feet behind you.
Imagine that this is the world you live in, now think- Do I need an SUV anymore or can I just get a nice sporty sedan? Or a small sporty thing? Because now, I don’t have to drive, I get to drive when I feel like it.And there’s less people on the road, so traffic gets better. And now, because you no longer need to be able to drive 500 miles in a day, an electric with a range of 200 miles seems totally fine.
Caveat for the “herp derp whatabout…” Yes. I know there are people who actually need trucks to haul tools. And I know there are people who work on farms and in rural communities where it’s not practical to have public transit. I GET IT. But right now, the casual estimate is that only 14% of americans live in rural areas, so let’s stop basing our public transit discussions around this small group.
This is the crux of many car enthusiasts’ ideals — the ability to have a car, and the luxury of not needing one. When you need a car, it has to meet all the requirements of your life: Cargo space, fuel efficiency, seating. When you can do all your daily tasks without a car, and it becomes purely a pleasure object, there’s no longer a reason to eschew the Miata for the Acadia.