This is not apathy in my opinion. This is rational. Cars are just tools. Metal boxes to enable mobility. Car people have turned them into this cult of personality that I think is batshit insane. It's not just cars mind you, we do this with watches, shoes, you name it and it's all very peculiar, but cars are my pet peeve because they are so obviously wasteful and dangerous. Not just directly like killing 40k per year in the US alone, but also through obvious geopolitics.
People want to move around and they want to smile smugly and think they are better than others. Those two things are pretty much universal. I say we separate those issues. You can move around all you want but smiling smugly you do in some other way than in your "car". We'll have really good public transport and you'll assert your dominance in some other fashion. I personally recommend we reintroduce dueling to the death.
By the way I don't know anybody that would buy a new car every two year to keep up with the Joneses and I live in a pretty "Jonesy" place. That's a bit hyperbolic at least in my neck of the woods (Netherlands). Most people here keep their cars until they become unreliable.
The people in the video are literally smiling smugly. I kid you not.
I’m talking about all those fancy Audi, Tesla, Volvo and BMW drivers that want to feel superior in their mobile box of death and waste. They are not car enthusiasts. Car enthusiasts do maintenance work on 80s Alfas for fun. I know the type and those are alright.
Car culture is much larger than the mechanics. It’s the idea that cars need to be nice at all. The idea they have “personality” and are indicators of social status.
I’m not at all against social status. I’m against using such wasteful, ugly and dangerous machinery as a delivery mechanism of the winnings in your particular genetic and cultural lottery.
Talk to various people with $100k+ cars and you often find they bought it "because they needed something and the color was nice" or "they always buy from Joe" and other similarly seemingly insignificant reasons.