walkable and biking cities make cars just as impractical

The picture above really does say it all. I’m much more used to a situation like below. Some will have a few more spots, some have fewer. The exception are the fast food places, the ones with a drive through, ironically they tend to have lots of parking spaces.

That’s exactly it. I like cars. I pour whole paychecks in old jalopies, which makes no logical sense. I do it because I like it.

They are. But most of them are not out of place in Europe. The biggest whales (example: GLS) were clearly designed with another continent in mind.

SUV (...) That must have the best possible driving experience around when taking Fido to get neutered.

The only Jeep I see in real life, in significant numbers, is the Italian made Renegade. Which doesn’t stand out as much. You do see the occasional Compass as well, which is also more moderately sized. Other Jeeps (GC, Gladiator, Wrangler) are available, but not commonly bought.

a car that the whole world knows

I live in Munich, home of BMW. I wanted to say the BMW X7 is the most American car I see in real life, but I doubt I can distinguish it from the X5. So GLS it is. Cars very clearly designed with the US in mind. Homely soccer mom vans at 5/4th the size of their already manatee-shaped smaller siblings (X5/GLE).

Jeep, the maker of big, heavy off-roaders and SUVs claims that it is ready to electrify its lineup in Europe

if Europe and China have tougher restrictions, that’s the regulations they’re designing to.

But they will bitch and whine when they need to pay a lot at the pump and then not change their behavior.

They don’t give a f*ck and not giving a f*ck is not an excuse to take a strong stance against progress.

It is either a crossover or a hatchback. It very much does not have a wagon form factor. It would need more length behind the rear wheels. Compare this to a regular VW Golf hatchback and the VW Golf wagon. You’ll see it’s much closer to the Golf hatchback in form. Or the short wheelbase Tiguan if you will.

Many customers don’t really care about emissions and efficiency. They simply want a lot of HP for their buck. When manufacturer A holds itself to a higher standard related to emissions/efficiency than manufacturer B, then man. B will require less R&D than A and will be able to produce a cheaper product. And thus will…

To be fair, all three are crossovers. You’re not missing much. SEAT/Cupra are vanilla VWs underneath, with the qualities you expect from the brand; uninspiring to drive, uninspiring to sit in, will not raise questions from neighbors on your (grand)kid’s garden party; you’ll fit right in. And that’s the point.

Exactly. I see the fast versions of Audi and Merc more often in wagon form than in sedan form. Here, the sedan format has been commercially dead for 3+ decades. It’s really odd to me that BMW has never offered an M3 wagon before, because they would sell a ton (from an M perspective) on this side of the pond.

In my major urban area, its the equivalent of $6.80 gal USD. Ouch.

Moreover, that “1500lb vehicle with 165 horsepower” would be far more entertaining to drive than this thing shaped like an oversized outhouse. But would it be as comfortable? And would it give you a similar status?

They were driving on a track. Which is a creative way to artificially inflate wear/emissions per distance to a value that is unrealistic in the real world.

We simply need less. Fewer yearly miles driven per citizen, less weight per vehicle, lower emissions per driven mile.