When you can’t get what you want, you teach yourself to want what you can get and then preach to everyone else that they should want it too. This applies to many other things too beyond just cars.
It’s not that the criticism of private cars isn’t valid, but not having one because you can’t afford it isn’t virtuous. It’s only virtuous when you could easily have one but choose not to.
Never met any of those people.
Most of the people who can’t afford a car here have enough other stuff to worry about and also typically just want to own a car themselves one day.
This goes so far that many of the people who realistically can’t afford a car financially, own one nonetheless.
This is Germany, though. Many Germans have a “special” connection to cars, bordering on unhealthy…