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suv’s where big in the 90’s so I don’t get this.
station wagon superiority
i need an electric station wagon goshdarnit!!
I really want a large electric station vagon, or even better an electric camper with decent range.
Hopefully its just a few years away.
Taycan Cross Turismo or Sport Turismo is incredible. It had better be for its sticker price tho. But they’re probably great on the used market.
Convertibles and coupes are also a dying breed.
I love mt Subaru Levorg (aside from its fuel consumption), I wish they made a new version with an electric drivetrain, instead they made the fuckin Solterra
I wish we got those in the US. I would trade my Outback for one in a heartbeat.
The Outback is cool too
I do love mine with the H6
A 2000 outback as an ev would be amazing. I love the old Outbacks.
this is the only new car I would consider buying. Of course, if they did offer it in my market, it would be full of touch screens and spyware, so I still wouldn’t buy it
tbh this is why i am still following that “Slate” EV Truck
A truly minimalist vehicle that not only doesn’t have a touch screen, it also doesn’t have a stereo system, a cellular data uplink, gps navigation, or even power windows (you can technically get power windows if you want to opt for them but the others are Bring Your Own Tech)
of course, i’m not putting any money down until the day i can actually get in and drive one off the lot MYSELF… been too burned by vaporware products -_-
this thing though, at the very least, feels like it might still be LIKELY because it’s a minimum viable product single purpose tool:
It is a MACHINE
that turns ELECTRICITY
into GOIN’ SOMEWHERE
And That’s It.
NO MORE, NO LESS!
Here in Australia there’s the new Deepal E07 which is a weird and interesting concept. Looks like a sedan / truck / station wagon all in one.
In the interim, the Toyota Corolla Touring Sports Hybrid is an excellent alternative. Versatile, spacious, fuel efficient, reliable, and dare I say quite attractive as well. The Toyota Prius V / α also deserves a shout out
VW ID7 was advertised as the new Passat stationwagen.
It ended up just being a standard sedan with more tacky LEDs on the outside starting at like € 70k
Yes! Me too. I think the only option at the moment is the MG5 here in Europe.
There’s also the Opel/Vauxhall Astra electric.
I hate them, I miss med-hatches and saloons. But they are hard to get hold of now, it feels like its the middle between tiny streetcars or ugly ute/wagons. I have even considered an estate car recently.
The days of flying around feeling like you were in a superpowered go cart so close to the ground
Maybe this is real, I’m no expert, but it does have a whiff of the photoshop to me.
If that is a 2013 nissan micra on the left it’d be smaller in all but height than what looks to be a 1990 ford escort.
“I’m no expert”
Opinion terminated.
Isn’t that a dualis on the left?
Thats no nissan micra, its a nissan quashquai
I hate the huge SUVs you see all over the roads, I have a 2021 Seat Leon FR PHEV hatchback, and around here the Kia EV9 is really popular.
While not as large as the stupid Ford F-150s, the EV9 is fucking huge.
The bonnet of an EV9 reaches almost up to my Leon’s roof:
https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/seat-leon-2020-5-door-hatchback-vs-kia-ev9-2023-suv/
It should be illegal to have a car with the headlight at the eye level of a driver of a standard WV Golf type car.
I recently inherited an older Toyota Sienna and it’s made me realize the current crop of 3 row SUVs and gigantic trucks is mostly sold to people who would absolutely love a minivan but just don’t know it.
- I’ve got more cargo space than any truck I pass on the road made in this century
- I can fit my entire family plus drag along multiple friends and still have space for everyone’s bags
- I can stand and walk through the interior if desired, even climbing to the far back from the front seat
- the sliding doors mean you can get in and out of the vehicle from any parking spot without a door in the way
- it’s got a turn radius so short that I can do a full U-turn without reversing on any road or parking lot
- the high seat+low nose means I can nussle up within inches of a vehicle in front of me and still see the bumper
- the engine is has enough power to be comparable to some small locomotives.
I would never have bought a minivan on account of the gas milage (~20mpg just ain’t great, and filling up the 25 gallon tank every week hurts the pocket book way more than my crossover that I got before I knew snow tires were a thing) but holy crap having this much space for people/stuff is incredible and I thoroughly enjoy playing bus/truck with it for all of my friends and family. For anyone who’s considered a truck/3-row SUV to be a requirement, they need to do themselves a favor and try out a minivan
…minivans are fantastic purpose-designed suburban utility vehicles; crossover SUVs are small-dick-energy rejection of suburban identity…
Like I said, I got the crossover before I understood what actually gets you safely across unplowed roads and unpaved farm driveways in the winter, but I at least knew just enough that I went for a crossover and not some disgusting oversized SUV or truck like plenty of other folks around me go for.
Now that it’s been totaled (cosmetically) by hail damage it’s simply not fiscally reasonable to replace it until it’s entirely worn out so that’s just a past decision that I’m going to have to live with for the next decade or so
…oh i’m not giving you a hard time, especially these days when most manufacturers have discontinued cars entirely to offer only crossovers or trucks; i’m just pointing out how stupidly the market evolved over the past three decades, largely in reaction to the success of the minivan…
…what’s particularly ironic is that the minivan’s whirlwind success was driven by a similar backlash against station wagons, and now modern crossovers have essentially evolved into overwrought bloated wagons…
It’s exactly why I just don’t understand how these trucks are getting so fucking popular in Europe including in Germany! There’s been a culture for many decades of the multifunction vans, Volkswagen multivan but also mercedes Sprinter, that one fiat model etc. They are incredibly versatile yet manageable vehicles. You need a bed to go camping : sure. Need to move a couch: no problem. Need to go somewhere with up to 7 people: gotcha! Park in tight spot in underground garage: mostly no issue… Compare with the stupid RAM etc trucks any of those vans on anything except “coolness” and the vans will always come out on top! They need an extra trailer to move a bicycle for gods sake. RAM and similar are just an enormous waste of space and fuel by comparison. These damn trucks need to be forbidden in EU asap. Minimum bonnet height/angle/visibility would be a good way to get there.
Trouble is, trucks are considered cool. Vans aren’t.
my work have a Hilux, it’s horrible to drive, it’s like being on a boat.
The commercials I see for Ram trucks make me cringe so hard I want to escape my skin. The fact that that marketing strategy must work is absolutely bananas to me.
Have you got a link to the one you’re talking about?
WV
Ah, the Wolksvagen.
Bonnet height for private vehicles should be tightly regulated, they are a key contributer to lethality in car accidents yet increasing every year. I could imagine some steep increase in taxes (at least at purchase if nothing else) the further you deviate from a defined reasonable height. People do care about money, make lethal asocial choices more expensive.
I drive a 2001 Toyota MR2. My 7 yo step daughter is taller than the entire car. When I’m next to most vehicles, the top of my car is below their windows.
Even drive thrus I’m usually lower than the window.
I love my little car, it’s more capable than people think. I can easily get all the groceries I need, I’ve picked people up from the airport with their luggage in it. (I have a luggage rack on the back.) But I am concerned about people seeing me and am wary of it.
Not the 90s, return to most people not owning a car
Hell yeah, I want to have a horse and a wagon
Imagine a wagon with suspensions, it would be so sick (and i wouldn’t get
carwagon sick!)Streetcars and tram lines everywhere!
Proper public transportation and maybe a bicycle would mostly do it
I agree completely, I forgot to add a “/j” to the my other comment XD
I want rural people to have cars, and people who live in cities to not need one
Make cars a choice again. Not a necessity!
And watch car ownership rates plummet. Turns out most people would gladly save their car money for something else if they could.
Ditch cars
I have a company car that I drive privately too. It’s more of a lifted station than an SUV need the space for the kids.
It’s just weird to me how people that don’t need all of that actually buy huge cars. As soon as I am able I’ll go back to small and low. Range rovers per example are just crazy, and everyone where I come from drives one.
What if I want something I don’t have to squat down to get into? I like small trucks and small SUVs because I can just lift my leg and slide in. I’m getting older, my knees ain’t what they used to be, I don’t want to feel like I have to squat to get into a car and have to feel like my arse is dragging on the pavement like I’m in Mario Kart. But I don’t love the gas mileage of those bigger vehicles.
I’d prefer a bus (and I’d prefer it to be electric) if I lived in a city that supported either, and if public transportation went to my job (it doesn’t). Cars are necessary where I live, and I’m here because I dream of a better world, but, I also gotta pay bills, and wishes don’t do that.
Yeah, completely agree. For a lot of years I could never understand why people wanted such top-heavy vehicles, then my knees started getting bad. When my wife suggested looking at a Subaru forester, I was offended. Then I got in and out a few times, and the difference was huge. So much easier
I just got a newer car and I gotta say the height was up there in priority as my knees keep getting worse- yep, another suv. Minotaur monster sized but enough to be easy to get in and out and my adult kids to be comfortable if they’re in the back seat
I don’t love the gas mileage of those bigger vehicles
- When my forester was new, it hit near 30 mpg- not bad for such a big car
- my current suv is an EV, rated at 120 mpgE
I saw a 1980s Honda Civic on the road the other day and it made me so happy. I don’t even love that model — the Prelude was the better small car, but I loved the Accord. Still, seeing something from the mid-to-late 1980s (I think they all got a little chonkier in 1988, so this would have been older than that) made me smile. Those cars were good on gas, too.
Friend of mine always buys Honda, starting in the 1980’s. At the time it was an Accord, but the consistent choice made it easy to watch it grow. At some point, I think early 2000’s, he switched to Civics, because they were bigger than his Accord
I mean they were built for the 70’s gas crunch, it makes sense they were good on gas. The SUVslop and TruckSlop we see today is largely emissions control dodging, feature carcinization, alongside a healthy dose of Jevons Paradox. Reject modern car design, demand smaller cars.
This is part of why I was hoping the conflict in Iran would keep ballooning gas prices, we got so many small cars and creative approaches to save gas out of the 1970s oil crisis, and a new oil crisis could absolutely do the same thing again, except now a lot of that technology that companies were experimenting with in the 70s is far more viable, so just that small push of a couple of years of oil crisis (honestly just needs to be >$4/gallon from what I’ve seen) could easily push oversized vehicles off a cliff and usher in the bike revolution that New York, London and Paris have been experiencing across the entire US
It was always an american disease from my perspective. But it slowly infected Europe. Now every goddamn household drives a fucking huge ass minibus/truck/Fucking Hummer sized family wagon to work.
The worst part is when they take up so much parking space that the lots next to them are practically unusable because they fuck you, I needed this bigass milonstertruck for casual commotion.
Yeah around here the little 90s car would look even more out of place since most people are driving lifted pickups that they are too out of shape to even lift anything into to haul. Guess what country I live in! :D
This is a nice thought, but if that older car hit a wall at the same rapid speed as any of those modern cars, everyone in it dies while the people in the modern car walk.
Well, not so much walk, but crawl on a pool of their blood racking up $$$$ cost to be paid by their families over the various future years of the rest of their lives…have a crash? Surprise! You’re a slave now! No need to thank me for saving your ass! Oh by the way, that left nipple is gone, and well, we removed the entire thing, but we did re attach your penis and your vagina… Oh…what do you mean passenger? Ah that does explain the extra legs. You know what, you need to rest, well talk later, again, no need to thank, K bye!
…Huh? I was talking about the crumple zones and modern safety features.
Yes me too. Those allow you to survive as a slave… High insurance, ambulance, hospital stay, meds,therapy… the other guy’s Chevy Malibu convertible super charged turbo powered rear window cleaning system with real live 2D naked Lady decal.
If you just die, that’s it, nothing to pay. Your quarter is over and daddy has no more quarters, but you owe nothing. If you survive, you’re screwed.
People in modern 5 star cars can expect to walk away from collisions that will kill everyone in a 1980s car
And I mean walk. They will have no injuries worse than bruising
Though the trucks often have the same tech, so they don’t suffer much more
I used to own a tiny little turbo Sprint (roughly 1600lbs), absolutely loved that car… reliable, amazing on fuel, fit virtually anywhere, but it felt so dangerous driving around when everything else on the road was at minimum two to three times its size.
When I was a kid, me and some buddies went to a monster truck show. We all were desperate to drive one someday.
Well, I guess that day has come for most of us but me. I hate them now.I do like my crumple zones, but would like modern cars to downsize like they did in the malaise era.
