[sfifs]

When you're buying a car, you're buying optionality for personally controlled mobility that's comfortable, immediately available, weather proof and able to carry people and cargo - even if you regularly take public transport, there can be major benefits to this.

Today, i live in a modern mega city were this kind of facility is available at any time of the day with a wait time of < 10 mins although i have a few situations a year where I've had to cancel appointments because i just couldn't get a cab. These instances are few enough that I don't bother with owning a car.

However in my previous city, many of these conditions were simply not true - so I had a car and because it was a low cost of living country, a driver too from the time we were expecting our first child to minimise the strain and uncertainty of chaotic traffic and parking. I used to get dropped at a convenient public transport point in a way that minimised my total commute time.

Where my parents and cousins live, most of these conditions are not true and they're forced to own a car.

As another example, in Japan, a very large proportion of households own a car for the optionality even though most commute via train to work because the places they live in don't have the facilities.