GRIND to unlock cars

A few months ago I picked up Unbound and was having fun in the story mode. Then I switched my attention to online and although I already knew that most cars from story mode don't carry over to the online profile, I was okay to do online playlists and earn enough cash to buy some cars. That's all cool and supposed to a part of the journey, I guess.

BUT - 30 playlists (90 races) to unlock ONE car which you're still going to pay the full price for? This is absolutely absurd and I feel like I'm done with the game just because of this. Is this the norm in NFS games now? Because I don't see that many people complaining of this, except for a few posts on Reddit.