This applies to all the vehicles. Most of the people own cars that they actually need, and 95% of the time, their needs would be satisfied with much smaller, simpler and cheaper cars.
Indeed, and that's why I was careful to say "most." There certainly are legitimate needs for fancier vehicles. But I'd guess 95% of personal vehicles purchases go beyond what the buyer needs. Which is totally fine!
Lots of people buy smaller cars because they're at least slightly better for the environment, or they just realize people generally don't need bigger cars.
It doesn't really matter what people actually need. What matters is what they think they need. Few people are coldly logical about big purchases like cars.
There also seems to be some social expectation that when you have a family, you need a bigger car, despite modestly-sized cars being perfectly sufficient.
People buy large cars because that’s what’s available. Anecdotal example: I grew up driving Toyota Camrys. Nice car, lasts forever. At some point in the 2010s they started getting bigger, larger turn radius, lower visibility - all around a worse product.
I think your argument is wrongheaded. People want cars to get them from A to B, that is all. Some people pay more for bigger cars because they have families, want presteige etc. Modular cars is so far down the list of things that people want/need.
Even software is often hard to make modular, things in the physical world... even harder.
In my opinion, larger vehicles are just a product of car culture, and even those who buy small cars are contributing to a society that requires people to have cars, which inevitably leads to larger cars in the long run.
it seems that people who buy cars fall into two groups.
the first group views a car as an appliance, and will generally buy the cheapest one that will get them where they need to go and haul their stuff around. you tend to see these people driving crossovers.
the second group actually enjoys driving, and will seek to get the nicest car that fits in their budget. the minimum viable car and the nicest car you can afford can be very different in cost.
There's no complicated fascination. It is simple. People like big cars because they are spacious, feel safer, provide a higher vantage point, and a host of other reasons.
Your hatchback is perfectly fine around town, but it can't tow a boat, and most people don't like to have multiple cars.
So, what winds up happening is people buy the most car they think they will need. It's totally overkill driving to work, and plenty of people never actually tow that boat, but this is why it happens.
Europeans would do the exact same thing, I figure, if they lived in an economic climate with similar gas prices and car taxes and such. With the possible exception of people living in old cities whose roads are just too small.
So if they don’t need a larger car they shouldn’t have them?
Small cars are available, even in the US, but most people aren’t interested in buying them. There are lots of reasons for that. Unless you plan to get draconian about it, people would need a reason to favor small cars.
Most people don't ride off the road, yet they get themselves rugged downhill bicycles with crazy big wheels in the city. Other people buy SUVs, in the city, where a smaller vehicle might have a ton of advantages.
This is all in a certain sense irrational behaviour, but in another sense it is more about the feeling. People like to buy things that they can imagine them helping in all life situations.
A car is not a small investment for many and if you have the choice between one that perfectly serves 95% of your trips and might suck at the rest and another that serves 100%, but the 95% are slightly worse/inefficient/expensive, that is a choice one can make. In certain circumstances it could even be the rational choice. E.g. if the charging infrastructure where you live isn't there.
reply