this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2026
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I think if there was a misunderstanding, it was that my intent was to get that person to tell me that US commutes were universally too long for this car to viable because that argument is always given as though every single person lives rurally.
I’m fully aware that a lot of people are in a shitty situation but I also know that a LOT of people aren’t. I’ve lived in both those kinds of places and can comfortably say that most people massively overestimate their needs or don’t buy with their brains. People don’t need a “back-up” ICE car, that would be a lot of extra up-front, maintenance, and insurance cost when they could just rent something very easily. Lots of people use cars in Montréal, for example, but they use car-share services because it’s infinitely better and easier. I only keep my personal vehicle because it’s a sportscar so it doubles as hobby and I still don’t drive it because the metro is objectively better the overwhelming majority of my trips.
Anyway, I understand that I maybe wasn’t super clear in the intent of my original question, on purpose or otherwise, so I get why you responded as you did.
Oh well certainly it's not universal. It would be pretty silly to paint 330M people with that wide of a brush. You can see why I wouldn't have gotten that from your post. But OP mentioned Europe, with its tighter walkable cities, slower winding roads, particularly narrow roads, etc. where compact cars like these do VERY well historically. Just based on the historical sales numbers of comparable cars in the US, it's still absolutely safe to say that it is unlikely to do well in the US. For instance, Hyundai isn't shipping the 2026 IONIQ 6 in the US because sedans don't do well in this market; they're not shipping the new IONIQ 3 because compact SUVs/crossovers don't do well in this market.
So to your point, at least a big part of the reason is definitely cultural. Cars are a status symbol in the US, which is ridiculous to me but here we are. But the other part is the wildly different geography and common travel distances between the two, which was definitely a contributing factor that created the divergent car culture in the US vs EU.
I was not suggesting someone go BUY a backup ICE car, but a family in the US often has more than one car and is unlikely to replace both/all simultaneously with EVs. The backup ICE car is something you already have, while using the EV as primary. You only buy your first car once, so I imagine MOST vehicles are sold to someone who previously owned one.