Buying a car

Many expats here fancy a car, but it may not be a good idea
Expats can get a SIM A (Car license) without too much trouble, but you needs eyes up your bum, and any accidents will probably be your fault, even if you were parked at the time and a drunk who was using his phone on a motorbike ran into you.

However, if you can handle that, you have to choose a car to suit the roads, not what you fancy.
There's little point in a sports car because they tend to be low to the road, and in a country with big potholes and worse speed humps, they aren't much use

Anything fast is a waste of money. The car will go fast, but it's as fast as everything else on the road in a traffic jam. Going fast on Indonesia's roads is exceptionally stupid as drivers tend to do unpredictable things, so you will crash.

Anything expensive is a pain in the bum. Motorbike riders are generally very poorly trained and thinking is for other people, not them. That means you can expect scratches, scrapes, and the things running into the back of your car at traffic lights (Been there, done that, got the T shirt).

My suggestion, unless you have special requirements, is to buy cheap and functional. The small 'Green' cars use little fuel and are cheap. That means you don't fill them up as much, and you swear a lot less when a delivery driver looking at his phone scrapes his way down your new car.

I use a Daihatsu Luxio - I needed a bigger car as we often took trips and, when I was travelling a lot for work, the larger van style car was really useful. Its 1500 cc engine is easily big enough to handle toll road speeds, but it's still fine around town.

https://daihatsubsdofficial.com/?gclid= … kQAvD_BwE#

That might be a good place to start, but there are plenty of others to look at.

I was going to change mine at 10 years old but I'm going to hang on a little.
World events and a big fire here have messed up petrol supplies (and I'm unsure about the future) so I'm holding off buying a petrol.
EV are not quite good enough yet unless you only want short range town driving, and I think they're a bit too expensive as yet.
However, there is one on the market that is making a splash, the Wuling EV Air.
It's very small but will hold four people and a bit of shopping, and you can charge it from home (overnight) for almost nothing.
If you're a light, town users, the little Wuling EV might be an option

https://wulingmotor.com/model/air-ev/
-@Fred

At my office Luxio it's always called a war car, but for me it's an Alphard manual.

The Alphard is very nice, but I don't swear very much when motorbikes hit my battered old Luxio.

I fear my children's ears would suffer serious damage if the same motorbike hit an expensive car ... but only if it was mine.