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7 points

I agree that car accessories like radios, seat belts, and CD players have improved significantly, but that does not translate to ICEs themselves being significantly improved.

Combustion engines:

1923 - 14 mpg

1966 - 13.5 mpg

1991 - 16 mpg

2019 - 25mpg

Electric cars:

2009 - 85 mpge

2019 - 113

Drivetrains, fuel efficiency, sustainable fuel (solar panels built into the body of the car), battery tech improvement, and so on.

Electric cars have all of the accessory improvements you’re talking about related to ICEs, but are also rapidly minimizing all the relevant material, environmental, and even maintenance costs of manufacturing and operating vehicles to become more sustainable at a much more rapid pace than ICEs have.

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2 points

Those numbers will go down once everyone is driving 4wd EV Suburbans with half-inch steel plate armor (you know, just so they feel their kids are safe) :)

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2 points

I’m hoping the current lack of sedan/small car options and growing bad press surrounding large vehicles will lead to a resurgence of small cars in 7-15 years, but I doubt it will in reality

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1 point

Haha, yeah, we’ll have to see the balance between technological progress and the burden of American ego.

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