So now you are attributing your pay check to your car.
(Actually with as little sense as your arguments make that might be the case)
You pay for the car (or incur a monthly payment for it).
Are you now at work? No. You have to pay for GAS first. The car is useless to you unless you pay that fee which is directly proportional to how much transportation you get from the car.
No. From your definitions
A resource having economic value that an individual, corporation or country owns or controls with the expectation that it will provide future benefit
A balance sheet item representing what a firm owns.
Assets are bought to increase the value of a firm or benefit the firm's operations
Fixed assets are those that are expected to keep on providing benefit for more than one year, such as equipment, buildings, real estate, etc.
Tell me again a car doesn't fit into those definitions. Thanks.
Can he sell the car today for cash? If he can sell it TODAY for more than he owes on the car, he has a postive equity, or in other words a net asset. Its as simple as that.
The car may continue to depreciate, but that it is irrelevant as to whether or not it is an asset. As long as he can sell it for cash (or trade for something else of value) it is in every sense of the word an asset.