Did automobiles replacing horses, diminishing horse population, diminishing horse suffering – as a consequence of work forced upon the animals. Is that moral win for horses; less suffering? Although their population is vastly smaller than 130 years ago.
Flip it and you have massive horse breeding, horses being stored on the side of the road in winter. Horses dying of abuse and overuse. Etc.
Cars aren’t the problem. Humans are.
In Alexandre Dumas’ work, the essence of speedy/hasty travel is how many horses were exhausted, that paints a picture of the utilitarian (not the philosophical ethics) way people used to treat these animals.
On the other hand there’s sections where D’Artagnan loves his old, wonky steed. So people did care for their own. But people do have those feelings even for inanimate objects, like cars.
I think one could compare dogs. They are being used utilisticallly, like drug finders or rescue dogs. Obviously there are people that treat them badly and most people would rather have a dog die than a human being (Laika). Does that mean most dogs would be better of not born?
The Soviet Union trained dogs to carry explosives to the underside of enemy tanks. sometimes it backfired. but the dogs were meant to be blown up is my point. they were explosive delivery machines, functionally not unlike a FGM-148 Javelin antitank missile
Environmentalism is a nutshell.