I'd argue that the buyers are getting a free ride by offloading the negative externalities of the purchase to others. So we have to consider the cost of climate change remediation, the cost of accidents etc. A study by the Technical University of Dresden(1) estimated a rough cost to society of €16,000 per new car sold. 40%-60% of that cost was due accidents, the single highest cost category.

The costs will change from society to society, but given the mix of vehicles in the United States and the structure of our health care system I feel confident that A) the accident cost are higher here and B) those costs will be distributed in less equitable fashion.

1 https://stopclimatechange.net/fileadmin/content/documents/mo...

I think they fooled themselves into believing that low gas prices were a norm and that filling up a huge tank shouldn't be that expensive. I don't remember the details exactly because it didn't affect me, but I'm thinking back to a similar thing ~15 years ago where Hummers got super popular due to a combination of aesthetics and favorable tax treatment, but then the price of gas shot up following some reversal in the Middle East and lots of people decided the total cost of ownership wasn't that great after all.