I think the white goods analogy is a good one. The vast majority of people consider cars to be just that, a commodity, otherwise how can you explain the sales of Nissan Juke / Quasqui.
I’m totally ambivalent about it, I’ll be keeping my car and if anyone else wants an electric one, that’s their look out. It got nothing to do with individuality and everything to do with the vast majority of road users wanting something different from motoring than us.
As for not taking cash, I don’t care about that either, it makes absolutely no difference to me.
I’ll try really, really hard to think of something that has changed since the 70s which I don’t like and have the energy to complain about, but no promises