each their own opinion of course but yes it does matter
there are people who wants cars for storytelling, realistic gameplay or either for decorations
The Sims 2 had cars and it didn't had a open world and i rather have them as a rabbit-hole than the car options The Sims 3 has
and there's a survey on this from this year and 3 out of the 7 is based on cars or other vehicles in general so that shows that the fans do care about having cars in the game
simple things like upgrading them, dye car colours to your likings, rabbit-hole driving, go to work by using the car, fixing the car the simple things can be in basegame
but to expand things more you do need a cars pack for more options