American car buyers are borrowing like never before—and missing plenty of payments, too (1.2T$ debt now)

[Conina]

VGPolyglot said:
Not surprising. Transportation is necessary, and for many people to have jobs they need a vehicle to travel to and from work, so it's either they don't get to work or bite the bullet and go into debt with a loan to get it.

But do they all need new cars to get to their jobs? Seems like a waste of money, no big advantages over well preserved used cars.

I bought my first car for €1200 (12 years old) and drove it for 6 years. Then bought my second car for €6000 (4 years old) and drove it for 15 years. Then bought my current car for €6300 (7 years old) and I will drive it for at least 10 years. No big repairs in almost 30 years either.