There are more savvy ways to do it though, like getting stuff delivered - it's not a dichotomy between carrying stuff everywhere and hauling it in a car. It is a bit painful at first to get used to paying an extra $5-10 here and there for delivery, but it's nothing in comparison to the cost of a car, not to mention the time it saves. Any time something is heavy enough that I dread carrying it I just get it delivered (which for groceries, I generally do once every 1-2 weeks).
Of course there are a lot of caveats, like using specific delivery services which don't create headaches or charge exorbitant prices. I hate hate hate substitutions/when something is out of stock, but it essentially never happens with Amazon Fresh or Food Rocket (a startup in SF), is rare for Whole Foods, and mildly infrequent with Safeway - none of which have extra markup for delivered goods beyond a transparent delivery fee. I've heard too many horror stories about Instacart or other services to even bother though.
As an aside, that is something I've noticed about car ownership, that people treat all the costs as its own thing without looking at the marginal cost it adds to the various things they do. When deciding to go carless, that was one of the strongest arguments tipping me over. Just what I was paying in insurance and gas was enough to cover all my delivery fees and public transit costs.