edit: I see. I definitely have heard this, just not called as such https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_tailpipe

You can see how defensive people get about the marginal adjustments that swapping from a ICE to an electric car would mean. Basically just that journeys of several hundred miles become slightly more painful, oh and if we're being fussy it's not clear how towing would work with an electric car yet (the impact on range rather than their ability to do it is the issue).

> But even when cars are necessary, they tend to be massively overengineered - does every car need to be 1) a five-seater, 2) 500KM range (300mile range), and 3) capable of driving at 110KM/hr (70miles/hr)?

I'm with you on this but it's slightly worse than you say. Most of the popular electric cars are large sedan / SUV sized rather than small city cars and hatchbacks. Cars like the VW E-up and the Honda E are exceptions. Admittedly they still have 4/5 seats but the market demand is a problem for anything less (people are irrationally attached to the ability to transport 4+ people, even if they never actually do it).

When I was commuting 180km every day for a few months (lived in Lublin, worked in Warsaw temporarily) I realized I'm making the whole route using electricity (a trolley in Lublin, a train between the cities, a tram in Warsaw). And I was reading a book the whole time. It's the self-drivining car dream made true with 19th century technology :)

But US is fucked up culturally and infrastructurally when it comes to cars so the next best thing is making EVs cool.