while tech has certainly expanded , in 1980 i bought a dodge colt, and if memory serves me, i was getting hway mileage of 35ish.... a similar sized car today probably would exceed that mileage, but not by a great amount... as said above... smoke and mirrors...
If you were to get t boned by a pickup in the colt you would probably die, todays car would likely allow you walk away. But yeah I agree, we had super high MPG cars in the 80s.
Reminds me of the GM Geo Metro, damn things got incredible mpg, but were death traps.
As far as battery tech (and electric motors) look what drones can do. If someone said a few years back that we would be playing with drones that could fly thousands of feet up, miles out, with great cameras recording everything I would have said hogwash.
