Cars are already optional. I didn't own a car until my thirties. But the things you can do with a car are so much more expansive than the things you can do without a car.

I mean, have you ever tried to move house without one? You're either relying on friends, or you're forking out for a removalist. And that's just one small example. As long as that difference in capability exists (and it always will) we'll have a need for cars or something like them. Remember, cars only really filled the social and economic niche that was occupied by horses, so that need was already there.

You can rent a small van for 2 days, that's it for moving. By small van I mean Fiat Doblo or similar, bigger if you have larger furniture. Super big furniture: can't move that with a car, you need a box truck anyway, you'd rent that.

Definitely cheaper than owning a car 24/7.

And horses were owned by a minority of (generally rich) people.

50% of people didn't have, nor need, horses, unlike cars now.

Cars are great, but again, they should be optional. When did the 3 teens in the suburbs "option" to have to drive everywhere? Never, they didn't, their parents chose for them.

I cant find a single image that gets close to the amount of stuff I use to hurl around on cargo bikes. The older ones take 300-400 kg worth of stuff.

This old image of a data transfer is probably appropriate.

http://www.brabantbekijken.nl/2010/01/middeleeuwse-stukken-o...

I estimate 150 to 200 folders there.

Okay, now try doing that in monsoonal rains like the ones I grew up with as a kid. Between India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Brazil, several billion people live in heavy rainfall regions close to the equator. Most people in those regions would already know the reality of having to haul goods by bicycle in the rain, and I'd put money on them choosing a car if given the choice.

And that's kind of the point. Can you do this stuff by bicycle or other modes of transport? Sure, many do. Would most people make that choice? Probably not, so you have to take it away from them once they have the means to choose a car instead. That's a tough sell.

The curse of being human is that we need to do uncomfortable things to grow and maintain ourselves all while avoiding things we enjoy but are bad for us. It's a catch 22 if you like.

Imagine how nice it is to get home after the monsoonal cargo cycling, how happy you are to see the family, how nice they are to you drenched and exhausted, how good the food tastes, the cardiovascular perks.

With a car you carry your mood wherever you go, there is no hard reset. You correct your sensitivity to register signals the monsoon would "normally" drown out until everything becomes a stress signal and you need Prozac or Valium to deal with it.

Car owners can workout too of course but it's an entirely different game if you have to fuel it with discipline in stead of necessity.

Errr... Maybe try telling this to the people in developing countries who already do this and more because they have no choice. Think of the lesson you'll have learned if you make it out with your life!

Any plan that relies on humanity to collectively go through some kind of personal growth prescribed by you, the individual, is bound for failure. You can't force people to give a shit, and you'll have a hard time convincing the guy pulling tuktuks through the rain that he actually has a better deal than the local taxi drivers. And he's not even the guy you really need to convince. We can't even convince billionaires who supposedly believe in climate change that maybe there are alternatives to private jets.

If you really want people to drive less, the only thing you can really do is provide alternatives and hope people hop on board, which is how the car originally spread in the first place. Spoiler though, they probably won't in any scalable long term capacity, because despite their flaws, cars are inherently a force multiplier. They just let you do a lot more, and as long as that remains true, people will be willing to pay the price of ownership.