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.
Yeah that’s a fair point. Having the option to not have a car is a privilege in itself.
However, there are also those who can afford to live in a city and get by without a car but would get one if they could afford it but because they can’t, they resent the people who do. Those are the ones I’m referring to here. My criticism only applies to the actual hypocrites.