If this was going to be another “crossovers are dumb” rant about how you should buy a hatchback or wagon instead, I’d hope my editors would tell me to go back and try again. There are good reasons why compact crossovers are so popular. They’re easy to get in and out of, spacious, practical and more fuel efficient than sedans were even a decade ago. Do I have any interest in owning one? Not at all. But do I get why people buy them? Absolutely.

What I don’t get about the RAV4 is how anyone could drive a Honda CR-V and still pick the Toyota. It’s certainly not bad by any means, and I totally get that once the pandemic hit, you kind of had to take what you could get. But I’ve driven both, and at a previous job literally wrote the comparison test after driving each one hundreds of miles. The CR-V is just objectively better. It drives better, has a more refined engine, handles better, and offers better storage.

Take the doors, for instance. While the CR-V’s doors essentially open a full 90 degrees, the RAV4's don’t. So if you’re trying to do normal compact crossover things such as install a car seat, the CR-V makes it easier. Toyota could have done the same thing with the RAV4's doors, but it didn’t bother.

Once you move up to the hybrid models, the RAV4 starts to make a little more sense since Honda’s been slow to hybridize its lineup. But as good as the RAV4 is, it’s just not CR-V good, and I will die on this hill.

I don’t get the hype behind Hyundai’s and Kia’s designs. I know, I know. It’s sacrilege! I just can’t help but feel nonplussed when I’m among car enthusiasts or colleagues and a new design from the South Korean brand wows everyone. I’m usually just left pacing on the outside of the crowd fawning over the “avant-garde” styling of anything from Hyundai or Kia. Ditto the Genesis brand.

To my eyes, their production models and concepts vacillate between trying too hard, and hiding a completely unremarkable car behind a gimmick — like LED headlights that only remind me of a catfish out of water, silently gasping for air.

I guess it just ends up feeling gaudy to me. Now, I have only driven Hyundai’s rather pedestrian full-size sedan, the Sonata, so can’t speak much to the overall driving experience. I suppose a (discontinued) Veloster would be a better barometer for a hatch lover like me, but I came away from the Sonata thinking, “Meh. It’s a car, I guess.” I found little reason to pick the Sonata over an Accord or Camry.

I admit I always saw the South Korean carmakers sitting below the Japanese on some hierarchy of global brands. And I appreciate the strides Hyundai and Kia have made to reach their rivals, but I can’t shake that sense of “Meh.” I do like the new Elantra N quite a bit. Maybe that Hyundai can finally change my mind.

Honestly, this feels a little sacrilegious, but I really don’t get the point of Dodge’s new baby.

The Demon 170 is billed as the biggest, the baddest and the lastest Dodge Challenger that you’ll be able to buy in the U.S., before the company makes way for its EV future and the government clamps down and stops companies making ridiculous cars like this. Because, let’s be honest, it’s an utterly ridiculous car.

Yes its speed is impressive, to some extent, and launching one on the drag strip would probably be fun. But the people buying it aren’t going to do that, they’re going to look at it and maybe drive it to a car show once in a while. And, if you’re just looking at it, you might as well have literally any other Challenger from the past 15 years, they all look the same.

What’s more, it’s just quick because it’s got a massive engine that kicks out four-figure-horsepower. And isn’t that something we’re all a bit over, thanks to the ridiculous power output from EVs today? Stick a hybrid in it and prove that you can have fun in a car with a turbocharged V6, that would have been a far more interesting way to show off what gas power can do in 2023. But, to me, the Dodge Demon 170 just seems a little outdated and a little out of touch with the current state of the world.

Sure, there are plenty of other gripes against modern pickup trucks. Their enormous size makes them a danger to everything and everyone in the immediate vicinity. The relatively small beds on current pickup trucks compromise the utility as a working vehicle. However, we have to talk about the performance pickup trucks that automakers are producing.

Performance pickups are all looks and off-roading ability. Trucks like the Ford F-150 Raptor and the Ram TRX seem as far removed for the intended purpose of a pickup as a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series truck. If you are just craving to have fun off-road, the pickup bed is a vestigial dead space. You would probably be better off buying a Porsche 911 Dakar or a Ford Mustang Raptor when it’s available for purchase in a few years.

Wait lists. Ordering sight unseen. Paying over sticker. These are the things buyers were willing to go through to get their hands on what was supposed to be a new era of cheap, small truck from the number one truck maker in the country, Ford. Personally though I just don’t get the appeal of the Ford Maverick.

The styling is too cute and strange looking; that interior isn’t much better. The base trim is spartan as hell; the bed is too short to do anything useful - something defenders of the Maverick knock its Hyundai Santa Cruz competitor for. At its core, its pretty much a front wheel drive car with an open trunk.

More than those faults though, the Maverick is now the cheapest vehicle you can buy at Ford. The company really stopped making small cars and expected those same buyers to come and put down cash for a Maverick. Its cheap and cutesy styling reinforced what Ford was trying to do: win over urban dwellers who might go for a Civic or Corolla. Even the promotional pictures Ford released for the Maverick showed it sitting outside of hipster looking apartment buildings and parallel parking with ease. But the reality is that while this is a unibody front wheel drive based pickup, that doesn’t mean small: it’s nearly two feet longer than the old Focus hatch its supposed to replace.

Dealers make it worse because of course they do. What was supposed to be a cheap pickup is sitting at F-150 pricing at dealers across the country due to markups. But honestly, people just want small, cheap transportation. The majority of those people don’t want or need a pickup for that purpose. And trying to convince those same buyers that they should get a “small” truck for that purpose because you won’t make a decent small car because you keep shoving crossovers down everyones throats isn’t it.