Perhaps because nearly all car trips are those in which they are mostly acting as an appliance as central to (presuming here) American life as AC is in most of the country.

Personally, I’ve never driven a Camry and thought, “this is awful”, but rather “this is totally fine and wow, great mileage!” In a similar vein, its status as an abundant vehicle with many parts out there and being generally reliable are all similar and useful things I’d consider before buying a new washing machine or whatever.

They're even reliable in the way they break down. Parts are cheap worldwide, every mechanic ever can work with them, and the service life of components seems to be staggered such that you only get a couple of issues a year even on a 20 year old model like mine. If you think all is lost at 500,000km, just buy a new engine for like $1000 and sail away in your little Ship of Theseus that refuses to die. The purchase price is so low and the maintenance so consistent it's like you're renting it.

If you are struggling to build your self-worth through a car or think you need to spend $50k to get that, try fixing an old Camry yourself for dirt cheap, and then see how you feel. No need to fight for right-to-repair laws either, just buy a part anywhere and clean or replace it according to the manual, which is just a 1000 page PDF on the internet of every possible repair. (Although my next car will be electric, because of climate change. Sorry Camry.)

I really hope an electric car model will take up the mantle for reliability and repair ability. Toyota is lagging hard in the EV space. Maybe those Chevy Bolts will last a while? Or the Kia EVs? Probably the F150s, but I'd prefer a compact.

I have more hope for EV repairability than for e.g. iPhones. Notice that right-to-repair laws followed tractor owners, not iPhone owners. The farmers felt the pain first. It's simply more important for a vehicle, where replacing is not nearly as cheap.

You can already buy random EV parts online. As automakers make more models and source more common parts for their cars to do this competitively, this aftermarket gets better and more useful. A fairly promising thing is the apparent popularity of EV conversions and home-brew EVs, so perhaps there will be some competition for e.g supplying full-on computer control systems with some serious capabilities. There are also more modifications people will conceivably want to do on their cars. I know someone whose petrol ute has a fridge under the canopy, powered by a solar panel on the roof and an extra battery. Nobody is out there drilling a hole in their iPhone to add a headphone jack, because it would be really bad, but you can do all sorts to cars without ruining the whole experience. The complexity and variability of what people want their cars to do leads to modifications and that demand will have to be met somehow. It's also the kind of strange demand that cannot be met by the big automakers alone.

As for reliability, I hope the market will continue to speak pretty loudly with their wallets on the importance of that. People care about it now, I have no reason to believe they'll stop.

I hope to see the next Mad Max movie as a visceral depiction of a wind, solar, geothermal, BEV, desalination tribe defeating the carbon tribe.

In replay of the recent election in Aus.

That would probably be Tesla? I suppose it depends on your definition of repair-ability. Telsa has a high degree of parts compatibility and seems able to keep even the older 2012 era Model S repaired.

There are a lot of high mileage Teslas out there. Most of Tesla's negative reputation seems to be people complaining about fit and finish (paint, panel gaps). The actual mechanical reliability seems to be quite higher than a normal ICE car. However EVs are still pretty new so long term data is still being collected.

Teslas seem to have a reputation of being locked down and requiring first party repairs. As an example, Tesla charges extremely high fees for its repair documentation to shops.

Considering how many Teslas have been shipped, a postmarket community forming around the vehicles seems likely. I just don't know how successful it will be when the manufacturer is so hostile toward third party repairs and tinkering overall.

I don't doubt they are reliable cars, though. So are Apple computers and phones.

No, the data shows that Tesla vehicles generally have terrible reliability. A Toyota Prius hybrid is far more mechanically complex than any Tesla EV, yet the Prius is far more reliable on average.

http://www.truedelta.com/car-reliability

But Tesla still sells well for other reasons, so apparently they don't have to care about product quality.

I'm having a hard time navigating that site and getting any data out of it. Is it considered a reliable source of information? It seems to only have data for the first generation Model 3 from 2018. They also seems to count stuff like replacement of the 12v battery.

The writeups of high mileage Tesla's that I have read have not mentioned very many repairs - and that seems to be the general consensus on the owner's forums.

Note that software updates are also considered 'recalls' on Teslas now.

one data point on a high mileage model 3 : https://electrek.co/2020/09/26/tesla-model-3-high-mileage-ex...

Consumer Reports has more recent data. Tesla is next to last. The potential for EV reliability is there, but Tesla has missed it with incompetent engineering and sloppy assembly.

https://www.statista.com/chart/23586/average-reliability-sco...

My first car, in the early 00s mind you, was a 1989 Camry Wagon and boy did I sure love that thing. Great utilitarian car that could fit friends, got great gas mileage, and basically required no upkeep.

I now drive a 2000 4Runner that has actually gone up in value from when I bought it 12ish years ago. I’ve had two people in the last two years drive by randomly and ask if I was selling.

One of my all-time favorite Onion headlines: Toyota Recalls 1993 Camry Due To Fact That Owners Really Should Have Bought Something New By Now

https://www.theonion.com/toyota-recalls-1993-camry-due-to-fa...

I literally said it's a 3rd car, what makes you think one of my other two cars isn't something fast and fun, that runs on premium gas and eats through expensive Z rated tires? Its per km cost is considerably higher. Maybe I don't want to use it for like, buying groceries at Costco, and with two seats it's not very much good at all for picking up family members with luggage from the airport.

Our only car is a 10-year old 7-seater powered by a 1.4 liter turbocharged petrol engine (Opel Zafira Tourer). An entirely utilitarian choice, I'll buy something fun when the kids grow up.

What I have come to realize though is that most people couldn't drive quickly in corners if their life depended on it.

And that there is nothing more satisfying than watching a Tesla or Audi become a small dot in the rearview mirror on a highway onramp or a switchback road, when the emblem on your trunk says "1.4 EcoFlex" and your bumper sticker says "Baby on board".

Sure, you'll get passed when the road straightens out again, but both them and me know that I've won.

What, does buying a more expensive car give you access to a different set of traffic laws? My 106HP Yaris is more than capable of breaking the speed limit and coming off a stop fast enough to slam me back in the seat.

Theoretically, no. In practice there's definitely a different level of scrutiny applied to beat up old cars (fishing magnet), a brightly colored sportscar (revenue ticketing magnet) or a bland sedan or crossover (mostly gets ignored unless you're doing something crazy).

>Why not at least a Honda?

Go out and actually drive the cars in this class and they're pretty much all the same. Honda build great cars, but let's not pretend you hop in an everyday Civic and it'll blow your socks off. They are very pedestrian.

We bought a Mazda3 because my wife didn't like the sight-lines in the Civic. YMMV.

A car is an appliance. Why does it have to be fun?

It's a moving chair that gets me from A to B

A very utilitarian view. People aren’t all beings of pure logic, though. Some people have fun in their cars and use them for purposes other than pure transportation.

They do indeed, but that doesn't mean it has to be fun for everyone. Some people enjoy cooking, but that doesn't mean everyone has to make every meal into a banquet.