As someone who loves and talks up her subcompact, a lot of people won’t ever see it as cool. In part because it’s so practical in an unobtrusive way. It’s cool like getting regular cardio or eating a diet high in vegetables: once it’s a part of your life consistently it’s awesome, but it’s not showy, decadent, or immediately fun (ok actually it is if you like a zippy vehicle). At least where I live a lot of people see trucks as both a part of their cultural identity and as associated with things they enjoy like hunting and hauling.
Making the smallest practical vehicle cool will be difficult. I think bicycles are actually one of the easier for it because it’s the only practical form of transportation that actively makes you more attractive. But it’ll generally need to involve more appeals to fun and coolness than being a nag or appealing to practicality.
I am not saying we need to make subcompacts cool, or the smallest possible vehicle, just ones that aren’t actively intrusive to the lives of everyone stuck around them, dangerous on busy roads, and hard to fit through neighborhood streets, that are wildly sucking gas down, while spewing pollution out.
![[meme] reason for bike commuting](https://sopuli.xyz/pictrs/image/ea0cd0b4-1ef1-49cf-b917-320da29efb55.webp){kind=link}
As someone who loves and talks up her subcompact, a lot of people won’t ever see it as cool. In part because it’s so practical in an unobtrusive way. It’s cool like getting regular cardio or eating a diet high in vegetables: once it’s a part of your life consistently it’s awesome, but it’s not showy, decadent, or immediately fun (ok actually it is if you like a zippy vehicle). At least where I live a lot of people see trucks as both a part of their cultural identity and as associated with things they enjoy like hunting and hauling.
Making the smallest practical vehicle cool will be difficult. I think bicycles are actually one of the easier for it because it’s the only practical form of transportation that actively makes you more attractive. But it’ll generally need to involve more appeals to fun and coolness than being a nag or appealing to practicality.
I am not saying we need to make subcompacts cool, or the smallest possible vehicle, just ones that aren’t actively intrusive to the lives of everyone stuck around them, dangerous on busy roads, and hard to fit through neighborhood streets, that are wildly sucking gas down, while spewing pollution out.