And most people don't care at all what's under the bonnet.
They want something that reliably gets them from A to B and back, with occasional side trips to C, D and E. They want something that does that in a way that matches their personal style. They want something that isn't going to cost them an arm and a leg to run.
Forty, fifty, and sixty years ago people cared a lot more. Starting really in the mid-90s, that changed. Nowadays, there are probably as many gearheads as there were decades ago, but as a population they represent a smaller percentage. And there's a tiny percentage of people who care only so that they can mod their engines to run less efficiently so they can pwn the libz.
Inasmuch as people do care about the 1.3 4 banger — they choose it because it generally runs more reliably over time with fewer litres burned per 100km.
I think you're wrong: people who buy a shitty second-hand car to go to work and have little money to spare on it: indeed, really 0 interest in the car as long as it runs long enough to generate profit to break even.
But if you are going to spend 10k$+ on a car, then you start caring, A LOT. I've seen the change from when I was a student willing to take any crap on wheel, vs when I had some money to burn on a car and I spent weeks looking at everything to end up buying a 10k$ 20yo Porsche 911 :D See, I didn't even look at the fuel cost: only the engine perf per dollars. And it cost me an arm and a leg to run, in Hong Kong where the fuel cost is the highest in the world !
People don't work as rational machines balancing perfectly cost and profit in a constant manner over time. It's more a constraint compromise game with a repressed desire for luxury that seem to drive us: you'll buy what you can afford and within those boundaries you will choose comfort and design over economic optimization. Like when people buy an iphone, evidently they didn't look at all about cost for performance and choose something economically suboptimal but luxurious.
Accept it and you'll start liking them more I think.
I said: “They want something that reliably gets them from A to B and back, with occasional side trips to C, D and E. They want something that does that in a way that matches their personal style. They want something that isn't going to cost them an arm and a leg to run.”
I did indicate that personal style comes into it, and I don't think that it's not an emotional decision. But there's a reason that Camry, Corolla, and Accord show up in bestselling car lists every year (and similar models elsewhere in the world), and it has nothing to do with "caring about what's under the bonnet".
There is a subset of people who do care about the engine, but they don't do so because they actually know a damned thing about how the engine runs, but because a big engine makes them feel powerful in their oversized pickemup trucks that never carry a load in the bed.
Your assertion that people who buy an iPhone aren't looking at cost for performance is partially correct, but only insofar as most (I mean > 99% of people including people in tech—including myself) wouldn't be able to objectively measure phone performance worth a damn. Anecdotally, I know a number of people who have switched from android devices to iPhones because they see their friends holding onto the same iPhones for years without complaints, yet they can't see the benefit of holding onto their android phones and realize that they may be spending a bit more up front, but are getting more possible useful years of phone updates than had been available in Android until promises made (and several years to see if they are kept) just few months ago.
Yes, I also know people who are enamoured of their Android devices and have their own smugness about what they think that they've gotten over the "sheeple" who buy Apple devices, but most people really don't give a shit about the phone operating system any more than they do about whether the engine in their car is 3, 4 or 6 cylinders (people who by v8s are intentionally buying a v8) or whether it happens to just be a family of hamsters running around underneath—as long as it runs.
If you do not see those statements as complementary, that is on you, not on me.
Most people who buy cars don't actually give a shit how many cylinders, spark plug configuration, or hamsters are involved in the engine. They want to know that it will work and not cost them too much in fuel, maintenance, insurance, and repairs. They want it to "look good" for their sense of style, and they want it to be a "safe" car.
In order, it's usually price, style, then fuel efficiency (not engine, but whole car fuel efficiency), insurance cost, and everything else. For some people, it ends up being style, price, then everything else.
They want something that reliably gets them from A to B and back, with occasional side trips to C, D and E. They want something that does that in a way that matches their personal style. They want something that isn't going to cost them an arm and a leg to run.
Forty, fifty, and sixty years ago people cared a lot more. Starting really in the mid-90s, that changed. Nowadays, there are probably as many gearheads as there were decades ago, but as a population they represent a smaller percentage. And there's a tiny percentage of people who care only so that they can mod their engines to run less efficiently so they can pwn the libz.
Inasmuch as people do care about the 1.3 4 banger — they choose it because it generally runs more reliably over time with fewer litres burned per 100km.