HAMBURG — If you measure people’s happiness by how many cars they own, Germany is doing really well. The Federal Motor Transport Authority counted 49.1 million registered cars last year, more than ever before. Compared to 2014, car density (i.e. the number of registered cars per 1,000 inhabitants) increased in almost all federal states. It was highest in Saarland with 655 cars, followed by Rhineland-Palatinate (630) and Bavaria (623).
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For Germany’s leading center-right party, the CDU, individual mobility is the “epitome of freedom,” and they want to further promote the automotive industry’s status as a key industry of the future.
But does owning a car really mean freedom? Or are we just succumbing to the automotive industry’s opulent advertising campaigns?
Life satisfaction seems to be higher where people own their own car — at least in urban and suburban areas of the United States. That’s the conclusion of a new study by Arizona State University. Urban planner Rababe Saadaoui and her team surveyed people on how satisfied they are with their mobility in everyday life. They rated owning a car as convenient, practical and reliable.
Yet even in the land of supposedly unlimited possibilities, the car also creates the opposite of freedom: dependence. If this becomes too great, the individual feeling of freedom comes to an abrupt end — and the feelings are reversed.
Tipping point
The research team identified a tipping point: If people depend on their car for more than 50% of their journeys per week, the negative effects outweigh the benefits of owning their own vehicle. Those surveyed associated disadvantages such as lack of exercise, less contact with other people and financial burdens.
It is a nuisance to sit behind the wheel for long periods every day.
Working people are particularly dependent on cars: 69% of those surveyed drive to work, with around 50% of their trips being shorter than 3 miles. The result is chronic traffic congestion in urban areas.
Everyday life and infrastructure in the United States are even more geared toward cars than they are in Germany. With are more than 280 million cars for 340 million people, the United States’ car density is one of the highest in the world. The average commuter in New York or Chicago spent an average of 102 hours in traffic jams in 2024. In Düsseldorf, it was 60 hours, and Germany’s national average was 43. In any case, it’s still more than a whole working week.
Sitting in traffic jams every day can cause a lot of stress and even make you mentally ill. Rüdiger Born, a psychologist from Hamburg, regularly deals with people who no longer see driving as a pleasure but as an unpleasant duty.
“For frequent drivers in particular, it is a nuisance to sit behind the wheel for long periods every day,” Born says.
Traffic jam blues
Today’s cars are more comfortable than ever. Company cars in particular, often expensive luxury models, offer a living room atmosphere, all kinds of infotainment — and at least in theory — a lot of driving fun. Driving such a modern car can be “pleasurable,” says Born. But even then there is a tipping point: If people are forced to spend a lot of time in their cars in everyday life, in his experience, happiness dwindles.
The cost of owning a car is also often underestimated. It starts with the purchase.
New cars have become almost unaffordable for many people, as statistics from the car market research company DAT show: 50 years ago, a buyer with an average income had to work for around 4.6 months to buy a new car. Today, it takes 9.6 months, and 11.4 for an electric car. On top of that, usage costs are increasing. Even for a small car, in Germany more than 400 euros a month are due if you calculate insurance, vehicle tax and workshop costs alone. And fuel prices are also rising.
Social costs
And those are just the individual costs. The social costs of motorized individual transport are often ignored — but they are enormous. Exhaust fumes and noise make many people chronically ill, and the costs of treatment are borne by the general public. Infrastructure such as roads and bridges need a lot of maintenance, and then there’s climate change.
According to the study The Lifetime Costs of Driving a Car, in which scientists calculated the total social costs of owning a car, society subsidizes each car with an average of around 5,000 euros per year. In total, the almost 50 million cars in Germany, which are driven for an average of just one hour a day, cost a lot of money, both for individuals and for the general public.
Many people’s life satisfaction increases when they get rid of their motorized vehicle.
For the remaining 23 hours, they take up a lot of public space, at least in the cities.
So is life without a personal car an option? A study by the University of Basel suggests that giving up your car can make you happy. It shows that many people’s life satisfaction increases when they get rid of their motorized vehicle. Yet this must be voluntary. If external circumstances, such as a lack of money, force you to give up your own car, these feelings of happiness also disappear.
Many people would perhaps like to drive less but are dependent on it for professional or private reasons. In rural areas in particular, there are often few alternatives because the journeys are longer, and public transport is poorly developed. This also applies to car sharing, which saves general resources and is easy on your wallet.
Life without a car
The possibility of voluntarily getting rid of your car or at least driving it less is therefore a luxury that one should be able to afford, says traffic psychologist Born. The decision is easier in large cities with well-developed public transport. The same applies to working people who can do their work nearby or from home.
The state must provide suitable alternatives to the car
“I like to include a lot of walking in my everyday life,” Born says. He enjoys the option of being able to choose between bus, train or car. Experts call this “multimodality.”
For example, when people cycle to work on weekdays and take the car for trips to the countryside on the weekend. To make this an option for more people, the state must provide suitable alternatives to the car — with better public transport and more (and safer) bicycle paths.
The Arizona study agrees that multimodality is a solution to dealing with the automobile; cars are a convenient but unsustainable consumer product. Plus, multimodality means that not everyone has to get rid of their car straight away. At least if it is parked in the garage, where it doesn’t occupy public space and doesn’t hurt anyone.
