Kei cars don't have good crash performance. Even the North American Camry has extra structural reinforcement that the Japanese domestic doesn't because of laxer regulations.
The intersection between the "cars bad" crowd and the "cars should be regulated in a multitude of specific ways" (which has the side effect of driving up the size and price of the minimum economically viable new car) crowd is absolutely maddening. If cognitive dissonance were a physical object I would bludgeon them with it.
I would love a future where we can have cheap super-sub-compact EVs and small utility vehicles. But as long as these Karens get to hand wringing every time they see someone hauling lumber on the roof or they a family pile out of a 1991 Civic said future is but a fantasy.
Better yet - just make gas super expensive and you get European style approach. Suddenly mass transit sounds a lot nicer when you can't get $2 gas anymore to subsidize a car that is listed as gallons per mile.
Absolutely not. Cars allowed people to access areas they would not be able to.
Look at why sprawl occurred, it was not started by cars, it started with trains. The trolleys would allow for undeveloped land to be used, reducing rents that had been increased by demand. Then came the car. Instead of being dependent on the trolley to get you from place to place, you could allocate resources to get there. Economic activity boomed after that. There may be some difference on the implementation of automotive vehicles, but they are not a mistake.
If cars had been kept as an additive to public transit then I might buy your position but a lot of public transit systems were specifically destroyed at the direction (and with subsidies from) car manufacturers.
Trains and trolleys did allow for some suburban growth - but the sprawl didn't come into being until cars became the norm for transport... specifically, commuting by train and using cars for leisure could have been the world we live in, rather than this hellish landscape where cars are the norm for getting to the work or picking up groceries.
This may differ from your world view but please just compare the west to east coast where most of the eastern cities were built first without cars in mind and only later expanded - vs. a lot of west coast cities that have always been car first.
I'm looking outside right now and the landscape is far from hellish. Public transit is a great option for many trips and cars certainly have some downsides, but it sure is nice to be able to drive my car to pick up bulk groceries at Costco.
Oh, taking a car to get to Costco is awesome. When I lived on my own and shopped via walking I'd still occasionally borrow a friends time to do a big run with them to pick up canned goods, flour, etc... the stuff that's heavy and that you buy in bulk.
But in America, if you want half a pound of pastrami you're probably going to have to get in a car to get it unless you live in one of the few areas that still follows that sort of dense city planning.
I might not use that hyperbole myself but if you've ever had to sit through LA traffic day in and day out it's really not that hard to imagine why people get upset about it. Yeah if you live in the middle of nowhere it's a different story.
To me, the "hellish landscape" is the NYC subway system (arguably the best in the US).
While I live in NYC and not LA, I'm a frequent visitor to LA. I'd gladly sit through LA traffic over riding the NYC subway. Sitting in my own personal, clean, climate controlled space, listening to music I enjoy.
I'm looking at it from the perspective of what I consider truly hellish. Is suburban sprawl bad, sure. But let's be honest, how does any of what was shown in that video compare to a warzone, a slum in an underdeveloped country, or some polluted Superfund site?
It will be interesting how the American suburbs will fare in the upcoming years. With interests rising and home buyers getting more careful, the Ponzi-esque scheme of buying a house in a suburb might collapse [1, 2].
American culture is partly unthinkable without cars because of planning and zoning failures made decades ago. Why don't have suburbs a lot of small super markets and other stores? Why does everybody need to drive miles and miles to get a gallon of milk?
What is the alternative? Live in the city in dense, tight, expensive housing?
FWIW, many suburbs do have supermarkets and stores in their downtowns/mainstreets. I can walk...10 minutes or so to my local supermarket. But I choose not to do so because I can drive there and buy a week+'s worth of groceries and supplies in one go. I don't think most suburbanites hop in the car to get a single bottle of milk.
As much as there are people that prefer living in cities, there are people that prefer living in the suburbs.
A young twentysomething single me would have preferred living in downtown Manhattan and wouldn't have minded living in a 300 sqft studio, meeting friends, partying, partaking in cultural experiences that only a major city can offer.
Thirtysomething married me finds that scenario unappealing. Having a SFH in a quiet suburban street with a backyard to BBQ in, a garden to tend, lazy weekends with no cultural activities whatsoever, and a car(!) to drive around in is what I want... short of being extremely wealthy enough to have the best of both worlds.
Western Europe doesn't have the problems of America's suburbia. You just don't see the solutions because you are trapped in the mindset that cars are ubiquitous and alternatives must therefore be bad.
As I said, it will be interesting how well the American suburbs will be able to function. They function only because of heavily subsidized infrastructure and the poor parts of town are the ones paying.
Yes, the Netherlands have a large amount of single family homes without the need for American-style suburbs. Over 56% of all Dutch citizens own at least one house, 69% of all residential buildings are owned by the people living in them. Those houses are mostly not oversized like American houses and have less land attached to them. For comparison, the home ownership rate for the US is about 65.3%.
Everything points to the American way of doing housing and infrastructure is wrong and could be done cheaper and easier if American city planners were to look at other parts of the world.
Sprawl is a symptom. You are fleeing from the city core because there are uncooperative individuals owning land and real estate. You cannot improve the city without their consent, so you flee and run away from the corrupt rent seekers.
There is a middle ground with low-weight, low-speed vehicles like 800 lb "golf carts" and 1800 lb Japanese micro-cars.
Japanese micro-cars like the Honda n-box slash get enthusiastic reviews from motorheads and represent a realistic alternative.