He went to St.Petersburg by car. Он ездил в Петербург на машине?

Another isolated sentence from a website teaching about verbs of motion:-

He went to St.Petersburg by car. Он ездил в Петербург на машине

I would have put money on this being 'поехал' not 'ездил'. Afterall, it doesn't even suggest that he came back, and in the absence of any context, I would have assumed it was not important whether he did or did not come back, or went somewhere else. Also, surely we can assume he arrived, so why not 'поехал' instead of 'ехал'?

Could this sentence actually mean 'He habitually went to Peterburg by car?' Also, I would have thought that he drove himself, so why not use 'поводил'?

Maybe I should look at a different site for examples of verbs of motion? Reverso springs to mind, are their sentence examples reliable?
http://context.reverso.net/русский-английский/поводил

Quote:

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Originally Posted by grafrich

Could this sentence actually mean 'He habitually went to Peterburg by car?'

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Yes, it can.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by grafrich

Also, I would have thought that he drove himself, so why not use 'поводил'?

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Usually, The verb водить (машину) is not used with directions.
Он вёл. — He drove (he controlled the car).
*Он вёл в Петербург. is impossible.

The form поводил has even more specific meaning: ‘drove for some time’.
Я научился пользоваться ручной коробкой, когда поводил «Волгу».
‘I learned to use manual transmission after driving Volga for some time.

Ah, thanks. водить has a more limited scope in Russian than 'to drive' has in English it seems.