To paint this as a consumer problem is hilarious to me because I used to work for a rental company that was owned by a big automaker and the way you describe consumers looking at cars is EXACTLY the way we did as a business. Why? Because cars are rapidly depreciating assets that carry high maintenance costs, and if you’re not paying attention to the age of your fleet, you’re completely SOL on you operational expenses.
Whatever “partnership” you used to have with your car was cooked up by a talented marketing and sales team to convince you that your car was more than just a car, and it clearly worked.
Have you ever listened to county music? Every other song is about a truck. None of them EVER mention rental cars. Rental care are soulless.
Anyone who doesn't recognize some sort of "partnership" with a car either doesn't drive much or has only driven rental cars. Wait until you are in a snowstorm in the mountains, at night, in fog, and you run into an emergency situation. Then all those little features designed by engineers kick in. Things like traction control/ABS, tire design, weigh and balance ... the engineering becomes your partner through a dangerous situation. If you only drive a few miles between an apartment and a office job every morning it is understandable to treat a car as a nothing object. But anyone who has done a multi-day drive covering 1000s of miles, especially across mountains, quickly learns that every model has a unique personality.
When I come home from a long trip or overseas deployment, it isn't always family greeting me at the airport. Often, the first sense of being "home" is retrieving my car out of long-term parking.
This is the correct attitude to have.
Henry Ford literally invented commodification so when exactly, in your opinion, was this not the case?
Model T 1918 price: $680
680$ in today's money: $14,732
Henry Ford invented assembly line manufacturing. A product manufactured on an assembly line is the textbook definition of a commodity.
> Back then it took knowledge and work to keep a car on the road, to deal with inevitable roadside breakdowns long before cellphones.
I'm sorry but am I to believe you were around "back then" to know what it took to keep a car on the road "back then"?
Toyota only recently introduced a brand new Truck engine which replaced their previous 5.7L naturally aspirated V8. Presumably because they sell a lot of smaller cars they were able to keep the 5.7 for so long, it got worst-in-class gas mileage. But their clients loved that engine and there's only one reason you completely ditch a SKU the vast majority likes, emission standards. It's all being driven by emission standards. I'm not saying that's a totally bad thing either, I'm hoping to one day walk down a busy street and not have to breath in toxic fumes. But I think we all should know what the actual cause is that's helping drive car prices up and predictability/dependability down.
And hybridization on top of that.
ICE is at the end of the road. Consumers and manufacturers are between two stools - a huge course correction. It'll take at least another decade, probably two before it's completed.
It’s a death spiral too. Cars get less reliable -> people lease and don’t care about cars -> cars get less reliable.
In my opinion it's more about land vs city and company car vs self bought
I don’t know why we’re seeing more technology in cars, but s based on my observation that no one says they like the change tells me that it’s not consumer driven.
[1] https://www.spglobal.com/mobility/en/research-analysis/avera...