> There's an incredible amount of value in simply not worrying if your car will run when you need it to.

True, being able to know for sure you can get to work (or wherever important) is a huge peace of mind. And more than peace of mind, can be critical to remaining employed, etc.

A new car does not guarantee you that. I've had partners who are way more into new cars than me and those new cars have failed to be usable in various ways.

A brand new EV was in the shop for 3 weeks. Oops, can't go to work.

A near-new car had an ECU lock up so no way to start it. Call a tow truck to the dealer ($$$) and took a week ($$$$).

A near new EV had an EV-specific problem: it refused to charge. Car ran fine, but couldn't charge so only so many miles left. Drive to dealer, took a few days. At least warranty covered it.

> In many cases it might be better for someone to go deeper into debt on the car if it means they will be able to focus and perform better at work.

Going into debt for a car (a fast depreciating asset) is always a terrible idea. If you're super rich and can afford it, fine, have fun. But for anyone counting money, it's the second worst financial decision you can ever make (second only to carrying credit card debt).

Back to having reliable transportation, which is super important for most people.

Solution? Buy two used cars for way less than half of a new car which can still fail.

I only buy cheap used cars, but always have more than one available. Occasionally one needs maintenance and is out of commission for a few days. That's fine, I have another one (actually a few more, but even one more would do). All my cars put together cost no more than an average new car today. And insurance is way cheaper since they're all old beaters.

It's like servers. You can spend gazillion on the highest end server but it can still fail resulting in downtime. Or you buy a few cheap servers for redundancy and accept that failure is ok and redundancy is in place.