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Subaru broadcast its green bona fides in other ways, most of them extraneous to its actual products. Between “shows,” the automaker ran ads about its various charitable initiatives. “As forest fires keep raging, the need for replanting keeps growing,” read one clip about Subaru’s contributions to the National Forest Foundation, set against the backdrop of a burned-out patch of trees. Suddenly, a Subaru bounds up the hill of a refreshingly lush forest, as the narrator explains how Subaru is helping to replant one million trees so as to “protect America’s most beautiful places.”

On a sprawling underground level, meanwhile, a test track where drivers could take E.V.s for a spin abutted a recruitment pavilion for the Marine Corps, which hosted a pull-up contest next to a tank; the New York Department of Corrections, which invited children to pose with riot gear in front a bus used to transport prisoners; and the NYPD, which brought out various generations of police cruisers to display. As far as I could tell, though, the only electrified police cruiser was on the display floor upstairs, where a 2024 Blazer E.V. Police Pursuit Vehicle promised custom features for cops.

If there is something that can be called “car culture,” then the New York Auto Show offers a decent working definition as to what that might mean: fantasies of a better, more exciting life, where free time is abundant, your family is safe, and nature’s beauty is preserved and accessible for you to venture into on a moment’s notice. No car can reasonably provide these things; as far as the great outdoors is concerned, automobiles are fueling the climate crisis that’s making it more dangerous. The point of all advertising, of course, is to convince you that all that stands between you and some better life is a product. But as the myriad dangers of big cars become more and more obvious,  you don’t need to scratch too far below the surface to catch a glimpse of the lies and violence that keep car culture going.