I think a lot of people do want these things, but car buying is not always up to just one person. It's often a decision made in the context of a family or group who will share a vehicle or otherwise have input on the buying decision.
These studies should be surveying these groups instead of individuals I think. Sometimes the "group" will just be one person, and that's okay. But I wouldn't want someone's opinion if they're making it on behalf of a group without the groups input, because that's not realistic
Exactly. And this is the "magic" behind the Jeep Wrangler. It's the person driving it who you have to please but buyers have all these other spurious "requirements" forced upon them.
So they went out and built a 2dr jeep with a shitty 2nd row so people can pretend like it's optimized for people hauling and sell the "lifestyle car" they really wanted to their SO. They retained the soft top and manual at non-insignificant cost to appeal to additional swaths of buyers and then added a hybrid option as a checkbox exercise.
When it comes to Wranglers they used to only do 2 doors, but then they introduced the 4 door which is supposedly now 90% of the sales (I'm guessing the extra doors make it easier to compete with other SUVs)
These studies should be surveying these groups instead of individuals I think. Sometimes the "group" will just be one person, and that's okay. But I wouldn't want someone's opinion if they're making it on behalf of a group without the groups input, because that's not realistic