I guess the question would be, if I have a $9000 toyota corolla with comfortable seats, good tires, the AC blows cold, the cruise control works properly, etc...
Would I gain what I subjectively consider to be $45,000 worth of additional comfort and pleasure by buying a model 3? Or $85,000 of comfort and pleasure by buying a model S?
If you think about the math of what one actually pays for a car like that it becomes much easier to stomach.
At the end of the day you still wind up with an asset that was 85k. If you bought say a 3/4 year old car and bought wisely, it will have minimum depreciation. So while you are certainly out more money, it's not like you've lost 85k, it's more like 10-30. Whereas you probably are only going to be able to sell your corolla for let's say 4. We're now talking about the comfort/pleasure of ~25k, but the cost between the vehicles of between 9k - 85k. Let's say you have this car for 5 years, the difference in ownership is 4/5k per year. If you can afford this, even if I'm off by a factor of 2/3, it's really not that bad.
At the same time, used cars are ones that have already taken that depreciation hit and prices eventually plateu (or even inflate regardless of condition if its a desirable car like an old porsche or a 2000s toyota land cruiser). I bet you could drive a $9000 used corolla for three years and sell it for $9000 afterwards, and it would have to be close to death for that car to ever be worth less than $5000, which is like the baseline for a used car without major mechanical issues.
as a data point I know somebody in Canada who bought a 12 year old mazda3 with 230,000 km on it for $3500, drove it in BC for two years, and sold it for the same they paid for it.
by far their biggest cost was the liability insurance.
Would I gain what I subjectively consider to be $45,000 worth of additional comfort and pleasure by buying a model 3? Or $85,000 of comfort and pleasure by buying a model S?