What Is A Car?

How we seem to have forgotten the basics

Image credit: Mercedes-Benz

For the purposes of this article, a “car” is considered to be any vehicle bought by private individuals for primarily personal use. Therefore everything from small city cars to hulking SUVs hereafter will be designated as “cars.”

When you think of a car, what springs to mind? Status? Technology? Mobility?

At base, a car is a method of transporting one or more people from Point A to Point B. Sometimes this means from the home to the local shopping mall; at other times it may be a cross-country road trip. But the fundamental purpose of a vehicle is transportation. Cars give us a mobility that exceeds the capacity of our legs and exceeds the capacity of the legs of any other animal. Cars shrink distance to manageable proportions.

So the equation ought to be moderately easy to understand: cars deliver mobility at an affordable price relative to income and other mandatory expenses. For those with a bit more cash in their pockets, cars can also (like clothing and the homes we live in) signal wealth and therefore status.

Unfortunately, we humans are herd animals hardwired by evolution to do whatever it is we see other people doing. Sometimes that means paying absurd amounts for jeans with huge holes torn in the knees or covering ourselves in scribbles; at…