Another interesting read Ben.

My take is somewhat different than yours, but with some overlaps too as you’ll see. First, the overlaps:

• If there’s a good public transport solution, you probably don’t need a car
• If you have a partner and one car (plus public transport if needed and available) provide a good solution, you probably don’t need a second car

Now to the differences:

• If a no-car (or one-car-per-couple) solution adds say 5 hours of commute time to your week, and you can instead use those 5 hours to make more than enough to offset (after taxes) the costs associated with owning a car, getting rid of a car means you’re selling your time for less than it’s worth
• In the above scenario, if the income you make with those extra hours is semi-passive (say blogging on Medium :)), continuing to grow it will gradually give you more and more financial freedom

Thus, to turn around one of your statements, getting rid of a car can save a lot of direct and indirect expenses, but it will tend to waste a lot of your time on longer commutes and make life much less convenient. It will also mean that you forgo the opportunity of using that time to generate extra income that could more than offset the costs of car ownership.

However, another important consideration is that driving a car increases your carbon footprint considerably, which is worth considering too.