The existence doesn't annoy me. It's the sanctimonious tone that this should be the norm, when it's clearly not even remotely built for the reality of how families actually live, despite their marketing.
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.
The typical household != the typical new car buyer. The average age of a car buyer is decades older than the average American, and >90% of them own their home. So they're likely to either be families or elderly. https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2019/01/new-car-buyer-demogra...
Except having 1 young child hardly requires an SUV. The “minivan years” is really a small percentage of the average American adult’s lifetime.
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.
> 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
“4 door” pickup trucks are the most popular but many of those don’t actually fit 5 full sized adults. Some don’t even have 3 seatbelts on the second row because people really need to sit sideways.
The breakdown is somewhat vague but Regular, Extended, Crew, Quad are noticeably different cab sizes.
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.