When you can’t get what you want, you teach yourself to want what you can get and then preach to everyone else that they should want it too. This applies to many other things too beyond just cars.
It’s not that the criticism of private cars isn’t valid, but not having one because you can’t afford it isn’t virtuous. It’s only virtuous when you could easily have one but choose not to.
I own two personal vehicles and still use them as sparingly as I reasonably can. Rural Japan still is pretty car-dependent especially as tax revenues decrease with the aging population leading to cuts to things like bus service. I wish they’d focus more on good bus service. That would leave those of us who still need them for business (one of my jobs is as a farmer and I sometimes need to go pick up and delivery things) and cases such as disability.
I grew up in rural Ohio, USA where a car was hard-required to have any effective life. Europe as a teen showed me some of what could be (though, as chance would have it, I got to experience several transport strikes while there which did not really improve my opinion at the time) and Japan completely changed me. Once I saw what even suburban Japan could do, I never wanted to go back.