Everyday consumer cars haven't offered anything interesting to the consumer for nearly 20 years, and I'm not sure what they could possibly offer. For the longest time the branding drive for cars has been about new technology, signaling success and personal branding. But I see a few shifts in society that make these less important:
1. New Technology is fun, but it's reached a peak of usefulness to the consumer in cars. For the vast majority of people, a car is a utility, and their basic usefulness isn't improving anymore. If you find your near new car isn't meeting your needs, it's a different model, not a new version that you want.
2. I wonder if the personal image of car ownership isn't being diminished. An awful lot of money to spend on something you don't do much with. For many it's just been assumed that you need a car and that it'll be expensive, so you'll get it financed, which hides the real cost of the car inside weekly expenses. I see that changing, not least because the middle class has less money than they used to.
Just like inflated housing costs, the only reason we've been stomaching the cost of new cars is thanks to easy finance. When you live paycheck to paycheck, it's easy to mask the costs. But when people are getting squeezed, not even that works.