Safety regulations, strong secondary/used market, high fixed manufacturing costs and the retail consumption model, which all neccessitate duplication and style over substantive innovation.
I haven't thought about this much, but could this be simply because we haven't really had a need to? I mean how many people care about how much they spend on gas until the price gets high? How many people care about having a smaller engine? Hell, throughout most of the modern era, people in the US have been looking for "bigger and badder" cars. Battery powered cars have been around since the late 1800's. They became popular because "hey, no more horse poop!", they were easy to get started, etc. One of the reasons electric vehicles failed then was for the same reason people are wary of buying them now - no range (combined with the fact that paved roads were getting better and longer back then). Another reason was Spindletop/Texas Oil Boom helping to drive gas prices down. I'd like to get an electric car, but the range on the current ones suck and there's very little bang-for-the-buck.
Nikola Tesla had a way to power stuff wirelessly and completely efficiently, using the ionosphere. The guy was a genius but he feared that in the wrong hands it could do much damage.
"The nation that controls magnetism will control the universe." Chester Gould, Dick Tracy circa 1935 "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" Sir Isaac Newton 1687
Because the magnet that pulls the car is located on the same ca... WAIT A MINUTE, how old are you and why are you asking this? Is that even a serious question?
