Monthly car payments can be good, though, as opposed to paying cash, assuming you can get a reasonable rate of return by conservatively investing the cash in a fairly liquid investment.
Current (risk free) 5 year TIPS real yield is 1.65%... Not sure if there are many car loans offered at a lower rate. If you were thinking a different investment, you'd of course need to adjust it for risk, inflation, and liquidity before comparing to the car loan.
They type of people they target don't even have money saved for an emergency. Let alone money to invest.
There are economic environments where this is true, but I think they tend to be the exception, not the rule. Car loan rates right now are quite steep.