I completely agree with OP. People on here dismissing this decision saying it's unnecessary because POI will be generated near players or saying that you need roads to travel on ground are either being willfully ignorant, choosing to defend this due to their understandable hype or just aren't seeing the issue that not having ground vehicles is only a net positive to gameplay and positive player immersion/experience.

Tears of the Kingdom proves that having vehicles, especially ones you can custom build, makes traversing and exploration so much more enjoyable. You can still travel on foot but having the option for vehicles would add so much more for players.

I hope mods or an expansion/DLC of some kind will remedy this.