Dude, you just explained to me why I get so much disdain here. I never thought of The Garage as an enthusiast's only area. I'm very enthusiastic about logical, reliable, safe cars. That's not the enthusiasm that's welcome here though. I finally get it.
No, that's totally okay! It's just that it's not the
only perspective out there, and it's important to realize that what may sound like a dumb idea to you may sound like a great idea to someone else, because their situation is different. Bugatti sells a $3 million supercar, which seems a
little excessive to me, but
300 of them are already spoken for. Some people are into vintage muscle cars, some people like high-end performance cars, some people like electric cars - there's no right or wrong answer.
Take the bolded quote above, for instance - the safest consumer car out there, measured, is a Tesla Model S, with a 5.4-star crash-test rating. No spark plugs, gasoline, oil, etc. also make it one of the most reliable cars...it's basically a rolling battery pack with a simple motor driving it. Logically, with the top-end price above $150k, maybe not so much of a great financial decision (but that also depends on your budget!). So then you can look at Volvo's for safety, given their heritage, or if that's out of budget, then look at Subaru's, where
the engines are designed to drop under the car instead of shoving into the occupants, among numerous other safety features.
It could also be argued that you might as well get a used car, logically, at a cost-savings, but if you're looking for safety & reliability, then a new car with unused parts & the most up-to-date safety features like TACC + LSF, LKAS, AEB, etc. makes more sense, to last as long as possible & to keep you as safe as possible. But a lot of us are on a budget, so buying new is not always an available option, nor is it even desirable in a lot of cases due to new-car, off-the-lot depreciation. I drove around a tin can in college before I could afford to lease a basic sedan with modern features like a CD player (lol), and it was the best car that I could afford at the time, and I was happy to have a hoopty because it got me around!
So everyone is at a different stage in their lives with different budgets and different interests. While $600 sounds pretty expensive for a monthly car bill, if you want a compact luxury SUV and want a new one every year or two with all of the maintenance & insurance included on one bill, then this is a pretty neat option. However, $600 also buys me two Kia Souls, plus pizza every weekend. Depends on what you want, what you're into, and what you can afford. So you have to look at vehicles & discussion threads based on those three criteria to start out with, I think, and also just enjoy discussing car stuff. I think the idea of a car subscription is pretty cool - order it on your phone, pay the monthly subscription on your phone, do an early upgrade a year in, or just swap out every two years, just like a cell phone - pretty neat! Is $600 a month pretty neat? For me personally, not so much, but for some people, yes!
So part of the Garage is just discussing things for the fun of it & part of it is remembering that what is great for you may not be great for someone else, and vice-versa. Especially because those points could be argued all day long. Like if you want maximum personal safety, why not just buy a dump truck or a semi-truck? The weight would stomp out anything around you in the event of an accident. Not so practical, although
you can get a big rig for less than the price of a used Ford F-350, so not
impossible!
Another example, I'm a big fan of leasing, which is another not-so-popular opinion here. I drive too many miles to consider leasing right now, but I leased both of our cars for about 10 years or so. My personal goal was to have an extremely reliable vehicle because getting to work was critical, as I work in IT & don't have time to be bringing my car into the shop all the time. All I ever had to do on a lease was change the oil & rotate the tires, which I did through the drive-through lube places quickly. I always had pretty basic leases (under $300/mo with tax) and it turned out that having a fixed vehicle bill (with no expensive surprise repairs) makes it pretty dang easy to budget around, especially if you broke it down by day (~$10 a day, so even if you were working at McDonalds for minimum wage, a reliable car was within realistic reach). But a lot of people think leasing a car or buying a new car is a huge waste of money, and if that meets their personal goals, then more power to them! But it's not the only perspective out there, and it's not a right or wrong perspective, it's just a personal opinion.
So that's all. Just because something looks dumb for one person's situation doesn't mean it's dumb for someone else's. Volvo subscriptions are a really interesting way to sell new, compact luxury cars, which Volvo can then turn around & re-sell after 2 years with low mileage (due to the subscription terms, regarding max miles allowed before charging per-mile), making them attractive offerings in the late-model used market. Just another option to look at & a semi-new way of doing business, which is pretty cool!