The actual solution to this short trips problem is better mass transit and cycling infrastructure, with cars reserved for highway travel and other long trips or cargo hauling. Good pre-car suburban neighborhoods existed on a network of walking and electric streetcars. That is the future of urban design, not cars designed for Oompa Loompas.
Exclude people who never have multiple kids, and those you have yet to have kids or whose kids have left home and large vehicles simply don’t fit most people’s lifestyles.
Which is why pickup trucks can be so popular cars just don’t have many passengers on average.
Where I live they mostly drive enormous, 4-door "pickup trucks" which can seat 5 grown adults very comfortably. While it's not quite a 7-passenger full-sized SUV, I just want to make sure you're picturing the most popular size and shape of truck when you think about pickups :D
The breakdown is somewhat vague but Regular, Extended, Crew, Quad are noticeably different cab sizes.
At the other end 3rd row pickups are coming…
Something like a $65,000 truck. LOL
Eh... we have to thank CAFE for SUVization of the world... the stupid trend is slowly trickling over the pond and it's getting more and more annoying... I do hope that either US will fix CAFE or UE will regulate to have smaller cars (usually hatchback is enough and wagon for bigger families)... or ideally both.
At that point, the entire production and marketing of the major car companies shifted towards SUV form factors, since they didn't count against their fuel mileage standards. Now, the behemoths are the norm, but what is really selling is the "Crossover", which is in fact indistinguishable from the old station wagon format.
Yes, this thing won't likely do well when run over by an F150 or Yukon. Which is why standards should be set such that the larger vehicles are not such a hazard to pedestrians, cyclists, and smaller cars (eliminating the front "wall" would be a start). It's likely you can do just fine with a station-wagon/crossover format, although this is obviously small for a bunch of kids and dogs. No car is not made for every purpose, and I wonder why the mere existence of this thing seems to annoy you so much?