It's rather natural that once cars have become more reliable, fewer of them are needed. Who complained about throwaway economy destroying environment?

Demand for used cars is so high that the deprecation of new cars is often not as fast as that article suggests.

I paid almost $20k for a 2016 Honda Fit a few years ago, the Carvana price is about $17k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuZl-Ay-8KI

I also question the "Americans only want to buy large SUVs" because Americans who go to a car dealer frequently find that they sold out the last small car they had yesterday but never fear, they have hundreds and hundreds of trucks in the lot that are unsold.

I've heard Toyota very much wants to retire the Corolla but all that will happen if they do that is people will be paying new car prices for 10-year old Corollas.

That's right, better quality of cars means less wear and tear so they deprecate slower.