Key is that you think of it as a luxury, where Americans think of it as a luxury item and a necessity at the same time. They can't fathom real public transit because they've never had it. It's describing color to a blind person. Many have never left their few state radius, and few have even left the country, so anything different is terrifying and unknown to them. It's what they know, and they have no idea what they're missing.

Middle of the road public transit in the European context is likely better than the best available in the American context, which would be from NYC. Then there's the matter of sub-urban sprawl in the USA; it's illegal to make walkable, reasonable to live in, places in this dystopian pit. The few that still exist are dramatically better places to live than just about anywhere else in the country but our corporate masters simply do not care.

How long until it's paid off?

@9point6 @scrubbles the $500 a month for a second hand lease?

Converting that to Aussie, we'll call it $800 a month. My wife visits the office twice a week, by Uber at 8pm her one way commute would be $42. That is safely an under estimate as peak traffic makes that much worse.

2 x 2 x 4 = 16 trips a month is $672 a month on taxi's for that commute. A commute that is infrequent, and less than half the distance to the city from our suburb.

Yes that is before other car costs, but other trips too