Living in rural Australia means you can't get by without a car. Where we live is a half hour drive from work, from the coast, and the supermarkets, so at least one car is necessary. But there's two of us - and I love my freedom, so two cars are important. I have my van for surfing - I've had it for ten years and I'll have it til it dies. We have the Defender, which is for road trips and adventures, not daily driving. What we needed was a family car - one that was super cheap to run, would take us into town or work, and that we could transport the grandson in.

Arguably, according to many, we should be buying an electric car, but upfront costs and poor infrastructure make us doubtful that's the answer to anything. Add to that doubt about their resaleability, inability to carry out our own maintenance, and distrust in the industry. There's something inherently annoying about a young couple driving round Australia in their Tesla after having sold their van. What the actual. I just looked up a price for a used one - $57,700. Nope, nope and nope.

Sorry Greta.

We've never had a new car, and on principle, never will. Someone said once that's what rich people's function is in society. They buy the rich cars, and we'll buy them down the road a ways.

Besides, you get a lot of bang for your buck with a second hand car.

Our 'new' old 2012 VW Passat cost us $7000 AUD ($4500 USD) with a road worthy (we only need this certificate when we buy or sell a car). It's diesel, and automatic. It had one owner who always got it serviced at VW. It'll last another ten years yet. Besides, it has all the trimmings that VW thought through really well with this model of Passat - heated leather seats, for one! It feels to us like a luxury car. It's super comfortable to drive and handles really well - it feels like a super solid car.

Looking at prices online today, we got a bargain - and it was fairly close by, as well. Plus, there's something in me that's really, really at loathe to buy a new car because there is seriously enough cars in the world for everyone even if we stopped production now. And there's enough concern for the environmental cost of electric cars that make me thing the whole 'green' vehicle thing is an utter sham. Even if it was a diesel or petrol car, you're talking the extraction of raw materials from the earth, and then the manufacturing costs, and the eventual disposal. It's an energy intensive process and requires ridiculous amounts of steel, aluminium, plastic, and rare earth materials. EV vehicles are meant to have even higher costs. So until they come up with solutions there (come on engineers, what are you doing?) it's an old diesel car for us.

Funny, I whatsapp'd a girlfriend about it and she made me feel guilty, as if I had to justify it. She drives an even old Subaru - a beat up on thing she's always having to fix. 'Whatever floats your boat', she said in response to my excitement about my brand new old Passat. She messaged me a link to a small yacht she wanted to buy (though she has no money to buy it unless her parents die - the old boomer inheritance). What could I do but give her an ambiguous thumbs up? I was actually pretty furious for feeling I had to justify it. Sure, that's my response, but she could have at least pretended to be excited for me. I mean, we've always had old cars - but never one this new, with bluetooth for the phone as well - oooh!

It is a good thing - we now have a reliable car that isn't going to break down on the highway like the van and was going to be super, super economical (unlike the Defender). Our running costs are offset by Jamie's mechanical skills and if you think about it, we can only drive one car at a time. Having more cars does not mean higher environmental costs!

The only extra cost is one more registration fee to pay each year, but we can live with that.

Unless anyone wants to buy a yacht and fund us sailing around the world, in which case we'll get rid of all our cars, if that'll keep you happy.....