Even not-new cars are far more expensive than most people like to thing.

Yes, fuel and insurance.

Also maintenance.

And also depreciation of the asset.

New cars are obviously much higher, but the average car is also much closer to $10k than most people are willing to admit.

That is also ignoring:

• Cost of adding a garage to a home (~10% of the home cost).
• Taxes paid on property for roads (70%+ of road construction and maintenance).
• Deferred maintenance for car infrastructure not captured above (easily in the dozens or hundreds of billions, equivalent to thousands of dollars per adult).
• Increased cost of living due to parking minimums (and “free” parking in general - - $5000 a space * 3-8 per car).

TL;DR: Car ownership has a lot of hidden costs that people hate to admit to having to bear.