I think cars of all eras have had a mix of heavy and light designs. With modern materials, it's possible to make safer, lighter cars but modern cars are also r

I think cars of all eras have had a mix of heavy and light designs. With modern materials, it's possible to make safer, lighter cars but modern cars are also required to have more safety features. A Model S is about 4500 to 5000 pounds. I used to drive around in a 1981 Mazda GLC, which is about 1800 pounds. The White Zombie, a famous electric conversion with a 0-60 time of about 1.8 seconds is based on a 70's Datsun which I believe was about 1700 pounds (after adding a couple series-wound DC motors and a trunk full of batteries it's around 2000 pounds). If you asked some engineers to make a car under 200 pounds, they'd construct the thing using similar materials and techniques as a modern bicycle, and it might even be fast and safe at highway speeds, as long as it didn't collide with a modern car that weighs as much as five or six large pianos. So, in a sense modern cars are on average very heavy because they have to share the road with other cars that are very heavy.