As a member of the American driving Society and Carriage collectors association I have a different view.
Let us first dispense with the notion that vehicles drawn by draft animals are some unsophisticated assemblage of obsolete materials. My modest collection's senior vehicle is a Victorian hansom cab used in the old Basil Rathbone movies,with an english maker's plaque dating it to 1891.I bought it when the studios foolishly auctioned off a large portion of their materials. Needless to say, my cab is still going strong into it's second century. How many Checker Cabs are still operating in NYC? How many have recouped their purchase price 4 times over renting it out to those same studios?
Carriages used woods of differing species in remarkable ways; some for rot resistance in wet climes, flexible shafts to take on the torque of a vehicle, wheels with spokes at different angles to take the strain of local terrain conditions.And finally in my brief comments; wood, though our world stocks are abused, is a renewable resource with far less environmental harm than your titanium cooksets and plastic impact bumpers on cars.
Indeed, one of the reasons my hobby even survived was a minor event called WW2. Many people throughout the UK found themselves without petrol for vehicles. Many a rural family dusted off grandfather's jaunting cart, hooked up the welsh,fell or hackney pony and had viable transport. It was no accident de Havilland came up with a rather remarkable aircraft called the Mosquito tapping into the UK's carriage, furniture and cabinet guilds ready workforce.But then the agility of the Mossy descended from rugged vehicles of suprising agility to first time viewers of a cross country competition at speed.Agile/ an english horseman who wrote of horse communication told of driving a delivery wagon on a rural road. One new horse, paired with a older stablemate bolted at site of a huge american convoy. the then young boy lost teh reins and could only hold on. the older horse bit and kicked the younger horse into a series of left and right hand moves to swerve around a mile long stretch of trucks and tanks before coming to a safe stops. Again, so much for clumsyness of design.
I would direct naysayers of effective draft animal use to the association of traditional timbermen who skid logs out by horse, the Draft Horse Journal and the many mounted police units around the country.
I am always amazed how people, sitting on top of the accumulated riches of culture, medicine and technologic advance have utterly no clue how those amenities were acquired, and how foolishly we are forgetting the tools used.
Everybody check your PSKs for those disposable lighters now, no obscolete foolishness like metal matches, wooden matches or fire pistons allowed. We are modern after all.