Unpopular opinion, but I'm fine with the lack of cars in The Sims 4

I would love cars in the game Sims 2 had cars, Sims Bustin Out on Console had cars as a loading screen. 

However I would like more gameplay with the cars.

Washing the car when it gets dirty.

Having an Alarm so the burglar won't still it.

Hang out in car.

Woohoo in car.

Sleep/Eat in car.

Have a job like a delivery or Uber or lyft with the chance was cleaning out the car from drunk Sims lol. 

Just like we have a highschool diploma we can have a drivers license in our inventory. 

Teens can study for practice test, take the practice test, learn how to drive at a rabbit hole driving school or having parents teach them and then take the driving test. 

Yes cars won't be as functional as Sims 3 but with a packed gameplay I think it would be fun. 

Personally I want cars, and it's not even the Sims 3 cars that I yearn for, it's the Sims 2 cars, which as you might know function just as you said in your post. I liked cars because you could make a little garage, fix up a car and paint it, and it was even a woohoo spot which we all love. It was nice having an option to get to work/school if we didn't want to use the carpool or school bus (which lets face it are things a lot of people miss as well since it was fun to see the carpool get more extravagant with every promotion). And it was nice allocating sims different cars based on their SES or personality. And to me I feel like it might even save time, or at the very least add to the realism, given half the time sims will wander around the neighbourhood for 10km before the game finally decides to send them to their destination. A pull out scene and immediate loading screen seems a lot faster to me.

Nah, I'm not bothered there isn't cars either. Personally I don't see the point in them being added to the game, the world's aren't big enough to need a car to get around them and as every world has a few different neighbourhoods, the only way to make cars viable is to remove the loading screens when you travel between them, in essence turning each world into one big open world map that doesn't require any 'travel here' options. Plus if they added usable cars, for realism they'd also have to add garages where you can take your cars to be fixed, car parks, petrol/gas stations, a mechanic skill, roadside assistance etc and that's a whole EP in itself. I just think that when my sim uses the phone to travel they're calling a taxi to take them there and I'm okay with that lol and besides who doesn't wish that irl when we need to go somewhere we could just select the place we're going to and a few seconds later turn up there 😂 

I'm fine now with the lack of functional cars or a driving animation. I missed them earlier on but gradually got over it, especially after adding the DU pack and experiencing scenic bike rides... through my Sims living rooms. 🤦 I thought, wow, that would not be good in an automobile! But I do like adding them in garages and on driveways.

My only gripe now is that we have to access cars in debug. As they're only decorative I don't get why they're not just added to decor like the model cars. I just added patient and staff parking to the hospital lot and it took me ages to find them all since they're not called cars they're called "Unknown". I'm infuriated that after ages scrolling through the whole of debug bleary eyed 🫩, there's a cute mini I can no longer find anywhere!

Also many console players aren't aware they can safely use the debug codes (bb.showhiddenobjects and bb.showliveeditobjects) to add cars without disabling console achievements so they're missing out. That's in no small part due to incorrect online search results that wrongly state testingcheats true has to be entered first when it does not (testingcheats true disables console achievements). This incorrect information puts console players off using debug because if we do an online search for the codes, it's the first result we see and it's wrong.

Plus, the whole debug catalogue doesn't always appear on console and you have to use a blank search box which is a bit of an obscure trick that wouldn't always occur to someone to use. It's a whole thing, just to get a car.

So I think players would appreciate decorative cars being added in a free drop with some recolours. I don't need to drive them and the game is too far into it's life cycle to add such a major function. 

You’re not alone I pretty much feel the same way. I’m not against them being added i’m just not bothered by their absence either. 

And to repeat a comment I made on a different post about cars I really don’t see what they would really add gameplay wise other then adding a step or two for travelling but I can understand the appeal for immersion and giving purpose for garages, driveways etc. The more i’ve gotten into the building the more i’ve been trying to add garages, driveways or more recently a parking lot complete with sized up model cars whenever I can to try and help make my builds more immersive/look more lived in.