Is there a chance you belong to Tesla's marketing department or do you own Tesla shares? Why keep peddling their products? Why support its currently toxic CEO/company while citing last hundred years of history?
I remember many being taken advantage by Tesla selling overpriced model 3 for over $50000 and remains financial regret from those days..
He's just anxious to justify
his own $59,000 purchase of a Model Y, which incidentally is currently available on the Tesla website for a hair under $45,000, before tax credits.
Back to the original post, I've been
so perplexed by this thread.
We would like something that still has good fuel economy as a daily driver (over 30 highway, ideally about 30 combined), and at least 1.5x the practical storage capacity of the Corolla.
That's very reasonable, though honestly 30mpg is a bit low by today's standards. I've averaged about 45mpg over the last 70,000 miles of my driving. I wouldn't accept less than that from a modern car (as opposed to something with AWD and ground clearance, i.e. an SUV, from which I would demand at least 35mpg).
I've been doing research on midsize SUVs and sedans, and surprisingly many don't seem to have any more useful cargo space than the 'Rolla's trunk, due to being weirdly shaped/dimensioned. Which is where the vehicles I mentioned above stand out.
I'm very confused by this observation. A 2002 Corolla has 12 cubic feet of trunk space. If this car meets your needs and you would like just a bit more cargo room, then pretty much any car sold on the market today will meet your needs. You could get a Civic or Corolla hatch, a hybrid Camry or Accord, a hybrid Ioniq or a Honda Fit, a Prius or Focus, a HR-V or Corolla Cross, a CR-V or a RAV4, an Elantra or Sonata or a Versa or Kicks or Crosstrek or Impreza hatch or any equivalent cars by various domestic and German companies. There's pretty much no car on the road that will be smaller or have less cargo capacity than a 2002 Corolla, and the vast majority of them will offer 18+ cubic feet of trunk space.
From personal experience I can assure you that at least the Prius, Crosstrek, Fit, Ioniq, and CR-V have usable space directly in line with the cargo volumes reported by their manufacturers. There are literally dozens of makes and models over the last 22 years that will satisfy all your criteria.
Also, I have a huge and growing CD collection and no desire to fund a subscription streaming platform that screws artists on stream revenue, so a CD player like in the Sube is a huge plus since physical media purchased directly from artists is a great way to pay them what they deserve.
That's very honorable, but unless you have a pressing need for a Subaru's niche (ground clearance and excellent low traction performance), then you pay a very significant premium in total cost of ownership. Note that I have a soft spot for Subarus; I owned one as a young man and I love them. However, they are dramatically less reliable than other Japanese brands and the fuel economy is very mediocre. Buying a car for a CD player is putting the cart before the horse. You can get a USB or Bluetooth CD player for under a hundred dollars; you can get an aftermarket stereo for many cars for a similar amount and an hour or two of installation. Or you could spend an hour ripping your CDs to MP3s and store them on a old IPod. Getting 25mpg and dealing with dying transmissions, popped head gaskets, dead wheel bearings, floating valves, and replaced electrical harnesses (all problems personally witnessed on family and friends' modern Subarus) seems like a steep price to pay for a CD player.
If you're not interested in EVs for whatever reason, I'd take a long hard look at Toyota hybrids. Prius if you want a hatch, Camry if you want a sedan, Corolla Cross for a smaller SUV or RAV4 for a much larger vehicle. Cross shop similar cars from different brands if you don't like Toyota for whatever reason.
