I have some thoughts on the current state of cars which I stumbled upon in my analysis of the McLaren P1. In short, I think we have hit a plateau in everything but quality.

there was a huge leap forward from the cars of the late 80's to the cars of the late 90's/early 2000's. There has not been a huge leap from the cars of the late 90's/early 2000's to the cars of today.

The lower segments seem to be much better than they were in the late '90's and early 2000's. Back then, a non-performance economy car was not even close to comparable to the economy cars of today, which, IMO, are decent little cars. A person can go buy a decent new car for under $25,000. The "performance" economy cars of today have not progressed as far as their lesser counterparts.

the same goes for mid market cars. they are all more comfortable, reliable and technologically advanced, but they are not leaps and bounds ahead of 90's cars like the 90's cars were vs the 80's cars.

Supercars are head and shoulders above the supercars of the 90's but hypercars are not.