The functionality you refer to is probably the creature comforts (ie, multi zone A/C, memory settings for front seats, …). But the essentials of a car (ie, transmission, wheels, structural integrity, windshield wipers) haven’t changed for decades.
What has changed though is:
- increasing size of vehicles due to increasing insecurity of American buyers
- a large majority of class C holders largely unprepared for the size of these vehicles
- this gives manufacturers the opportunity to stuff as much tech junk into these vehicles to give these less qualified drivers more assistance
- coincidentally, all of this tech junk comes with a very high premium for manufacturers and dealerships
Fear sells in this country. 9/11 changed the game.
Many of those essentials of a car have changed a good bit in the last few decades. Hybrid drive trains have become far better and far more common. Electric vehicle drive units are far better than they were before. Transmissions these days are far more complicated and achieve much better mileage than older transmissions and allow people to select gears electronically despite otherwise being an "automatic".
Designs for structural integrity are also different. Look at a 1997 Honda Accord and how big its windows are and how skinny those pillars are. Look at a modern Accord and see how big its pillars are. Look at a crash test of a 2000s Town and Country and compare that to a modern Pacifica. Radically different.
The functionality you refer to is probably the creature comforts (ie, multi zone A/C, memory settings for front seats, …). But the essentials of a car (ie, transmission, wheels, structural integrity, windshield wipers) haven’t changed for decades.
What has changed though is:
- increasing size of vehicles due to increasing insecurity of American buyers
- a large majority of class C holders largely unprepared for the size of these vehicles
- this gives manufacturers the opportunity to stuff as much tech junk into these vehicles to give these less qualified drivers more assistance
- coincidentally, all of this tech junk comes with a very high premium for manufacturers and dealerships
Fear sells in this country. 9/11 changed the game.