Might also be noted that cars are a class symbol and a means of engaging in conspicuous consumption.

People who make the most noise about the "freedom" a car affords them are very often people who flout their vehicles a exotic hobbies or luxuries. They are, incidentally, the same folks who denounce bike lanes, bus stops, cross-walks, speed cameras, and parking shortages. Almost as though they don't value freedom in the abstract at all.

The only way to move around without depending on other companies is by walking, and there’s no way that can replace cars, trains, buses, bicycles, etc.

If you have all of those options available, you can never be stranded when one of those options fails.

But with a car-centric society, all it takes is a single point of failure, and you are no longer free to move about the society.

They are not advocating for society to be less interdependent. They are explaining that a car-centric society has less freedom of movement, because the "independence" of a car is a lie.

Cars are basically a life tax

It's not just spending money. In my city, we're poisoning the groundwater with road salt to support winter driving. One well near me has sodium levels in the water high enough that the water utility has issued a no-drink advisory for people with hypertension.

But I cannot help but wonder if a line of simple, less advanced ICE cars promoted on their ease of maintenance wouldn’t get popular with, for example, rural folks. After all, being able to fix the beast yourself would lover your costs a lot

No car company will make a car which is maintainable by a common man because it affects their bottom line. We can dream of alternate concepts (open-source car design/metal 3D printing) but government regulations and lobbying will kill such concepts. We have to focus on the current scenario.

But if I wanted to hit the relatively nearby lake or beach, getting there by foot is another story

The majority of the anti-car people are not saying "destroy all cars. Nobody should have cars". We are just saying "please don't make our entire lives car-dependent. Please design cities/governments/social life in such a way so that it's accessible to non-car folks."

I also have a car, but I only use it for going to places which are not reachable by public transport. For traveling to work, I use public transport 5 days a week. Cars should be (IMO) a recreational mode of transport.

Author also forgot that these companies won’t fail, because these are not “one and only” of each in the world

I agree with you; they won't fail. However, they surely can make our lives hell if they want to. This is a power that I don't want them to have over me.

We didn't make cars more complicated because "of the electronics" or "because we had to".

Car companies make cars more complicated because they make huge amounts of money from warranties, maintenance that you can't do yourself for some reason, and of course the leases.

Cars being as complicated and impossible to work on as they are today is because line must go up. Everything else is propaganda.

1. Are you saying the problem is cars are too expensive and too expensive to maintain because they are too complex?

Cheap cars are more dangerous. Simpler cars have higher emissions. I think the more complex ones are better. I would like to see legislation against the anti repair methods manufacturers use

2. Cars let you take longer trips. One of the Australian capitals had a train to the beach towns. That right of way was taken by a highway and the railway now only runs a tourist route between the three or four beach towns but not to the city

With cars less needed other transit methods get built for popular trips

Failing all that, hire a car the few times of year you want an out of town holiday would be cheaper even than a very cheap car

3. This one is completely correct. Last time I had a car problem I had a choice of tow companies and mechanics. Government services are monopolies but they're pretty proof against failure. The worst that might happen is you might buy a car that turns out to be less valuable than you expected because it's bad quality or the company owner turns out to be a nazi. But even that only costs you if you need to sell the vehicle.

I envy you for your walkable city. I don't think I did better by getting a thousand square metre block and a detached house. I'd like to see our cities made walkable and the outer suburbs connected by rail so no one needs a car. I'd like to see cars banned from the city centre except working vehicles, taxis, disabled people, tourists with a hotel in town. For long trips off the transit network one would take a train to a car hire depot out of the city and drive from there. Hopefully cars will be sufficiently smart that the fact the drivers will have little practices will be mitigated

3. Also implied that other methods of transportation are devoid of failure points.

Sure wish I lived in a walkable city though 😢

@callyral @grue don't forget disabled people. Cars are always touted as the solution for disability but there are *many* disabilities which completely remove driving as a possibility (blindness, epilepsy, many learning disabilities, many physical disabilities ... And generally being elderly, if we're honest) and car dependence leaves you entirely reliant on a chauffeur of some kind for any and every time you want to leave the house.

@tasho @grue As soon as they leap to the assumption that improving public transit means banning cars I know they're arguing from bad faith. (Or they're stupid. Either way they're not worth talking with.)