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Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

economist.com

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Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#671

Post by JeremyNT »

yamtaddle wrote: post #547
thesuitonym wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't get the emotional association of freedom that previous generations did. Previous generations would just go out for a ride, take the car out on Sunday and and enjoy the scenery. We just don't do that anymore, either because we're more concerned about the environmental effects of driving, or that we just have more interesting things to do. Not to mention, when this idea of "the freedom of a car" came about, ev…

Cars are mostly less fun to drive around in, now. They used to be bigger, with nice wide & deep seats, and they had way better visibility. Plus more were convertibles. Now they're smaller, with thick heavy safety beams providing much worse visibility, and there aren't many convertibles around. There are exceptions, but they're mostly fun for the driver , not passengers. And they're usually expensive. Plus, at-home en…

> Cars are mostly less fun to drive around in, now. They used to be bigger, with nice wide & deep seats, and they had way better visibility. Plus more were convertibles.

I am curious if you do not live in the US. The cars here have only gotten bigger... much bigger. Pickups and very large SUVs rule the roads now, with huge lifts and massive footprints.

Many of the most popular large SUVs, such as the Jeep Wrangler or the Ford Bronco, are in fact convertibles as well.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#672

Post by philjohn »

taylodl wrote: post #287

The young are falling out of love with cars because they're unaffordable. It's as simple as that. It's yet another sign the standard of living is declining for the young. The average new car price in the U.S. is now over $47K (Consumer Reports). I make a good living and I'm not going to pay that kind of money for a new car! A young person would be stupid to pay that kind of money for a car. Okay, so what about used c…

Wow - US insurance and used car prices are crazy.

For comparison, back in December 2020 I bought a 2-year old Ford Focus with 13,000 miles on the clock for £11,500, my insurance is £25 a month, but my fuel is closer to £160 a month, for around 10k miles a year.

It helps that it's a 1 litre 3 cylinder engine (although still puts out a respectable 125bhp, which is more than enough with 6 gears for motorway driving) and on long journeys I'm getting 50mpg.

For a country that seems built around needing a car (unless you live in a city with decent public transit) it seems ridiculous so many people are now priced out of it.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#673

Post by GuB-42 »

taylodl wrote: post #287

The young are falling out of love with cars because they're unaffordable. It's as simple as that. It's yet another sign the standard of living is declining for the young. The average new car price in the U.S. is now over $47K (Consumer Reports). I make a good living and I'm not going to pay that kind of money for a new car! A young person would be stupid to pay that kind of money for a car. Okay, so what about used c…

You can love things even if you can't afford them. Not all cars are $28k, you can get a piece of junk for much cheaper, you can work for the privilege of using someone else's car, with enough motivation, even if you are poor, you can get to drive, while dreaming about your having very own car. Owning a car may become a life goal, the ultimate reward for hard work. And it was kind of the case a few decades ago.

But now, the young don't want to dedicate their lives to the car anymore. They have other priorities, other dreams. Maybe they prefer to let go of the car and eat good food instead of a cheap pasta diet, things like that.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#674

Post by BizarreByte »

revscat wrote: post #662
BizarreByte wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can move somewhere you don't require a car. If you're posting on HN that is likely well within your ability. Gas does cost a decent amount, but it's also something you can control. Combine trips, drive less, and drive more tamely. In my opinion the freedom and convenience of a car is worth the cost of fuel.

How about you move, jerk? Why the hell should I have to move because of forced auto ownership?

Because you’ll find in life not everywhere has what you want and not every city is for everyone.

The unfortunate reality is if you wait for American cities to become less car dependant you’ll be waiting a very long time. If this is important enough to you in a city there are places you’d be happy.

It’s worth remembering that name calling and personal attacks are not allowed on HN.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#675

Post by MengerSponge »

bathtub365 wrote: post #537
MengerSponge wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving is a luxury, and should be priced accordingly

It’s quite expensive to buy and maintain a car

Yes, and public roads should be an additional cost.

I'm not interested in banning cars, but I am interested in charging appropriately for sprawl and air pollution.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#676

Post by tristor »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #645
tristor wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I could have expanded on my last sentence more and completed the thought. Of course nobody wants to be the person who works the drive through at McDonald's as their life's ambition. This type of job used to be seen as a stepping stone that provided you some spending money and an opportunity to meet people outside your parents social circle and school, a first taste of the working world, but wasn't a determina…

That all sounds like anxiety that if they settle now, they're locked in (or at least constricted to working their way up step-by-step instead of being a temporary position until leaping forward)

I think that plays a major part of it. When I asked my teenager about it, one of her points was that in order to be successful as an influencer, you needed to speak the language and know the things that have social currency, which is somewhat age limited. Gen Z is targeting Gen Z, if they walk away from that world of spending all day engrossed in social media and trying to be an influencer to work a regular job, they quickly lose pace with everything happening online and its direction.

So, if they are seriously trying to become an influencer, accepting any time commitment that doesn't further that objective and removes them from that social sphere effectively ends any chances of it happening. Additionally to the above, my teenager has admitted to me that she knows that influencers are time-limited with their success, it's something that really only happens when you're young, cool, and pretty, and shortly after you have a fall-off. They'd rather make the attempt while they're young and have a lot of anxiety around not doing it, and falling into mediocrity.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#677

Post by lesuorac »

taylodl wrote: post #657
yonaguska wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, once I started cycling, public transportation became a painful exercise in constraint. I would even prefer to cycle through freezing temperatures on icy roads rather than cram myself into a train or on a bus. Luckily for me, the bike ride was a 20 minute commute for most of my 20s, while the bus/train would be 40 minutes, and a care would also be about 30-40 minutes with traffic. True freedom for me is the motor…

Motorcycling is also significantly cheaper than is owning a car. The average used car price in the US buys a top-of-the-line, brand-new motorcycle. Used (and even new) motorcycles can be had for significantly cheaper. The insurance and fuel costs are significantly less as well. A motorcyclist will have half the cost or even much less than that of a car owner. I know people always respond that motorcycling is more dan…

> Many of the remaining accidents are caused by high-speed riding. In my own experience, I've had normal encounters that were I driving a car would have resulted in an accident, but by riding a motorcycle I have the ability to easily maneuver to avoid the accident.

To make sure this isn't downplayed. Having riden a motorcycle for years, many car drivers _do_ _not_ _see_ _you_. That car that just pulled out in front of you at a T stop would not have done so if you were a car. This is one of my biggest peeve that people who can't see a motorcycle are allowed to drive. You know whats smaller than a motorcycle? Pedestrians.

That said, parking a motorcycle is the best thing. Fits everywhere, just try to avoid backing up a slope.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#678

Post by dghlsakjg »

jononomo wrote: post #249
bluGill wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know Brazil, but based on what I know of the US I wouldn't be surprised. A couple will often own 3 cars, 2 daily drivers and one for some other odd task (truck, or the sports car) that is used as a backup. It will be one car per kid of driving age, though most kids are not old enough to drive. Then there are work cars, which for tax/legal reasons can't be used for personal trips so those who have them will al…

Ok, but in the US there are forty five million fewer registered vehicles than there are people, even after accounting for all the factors you listed. There are 286 million registered vehicles for a population of 331 million people. And the US is the wealthiest nation in the world.

The more important metric is that there are only 238 million licensed drivers in the US.

So if every single licensed driver went for a drive, they could invite all 26 million licensed Canadians to come down and use a spare car, and still have 22 million registered cars left over.

Re: Throughout the rich world, the young are falling out of love with cars

#679

Post by weberc2 »

toshredsyousay wrote: post #654
throwaway894345 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of that is true but it doesn’t seem to refute the parent’s claim that the American anti-car rhetoric envisions a nation where cycling and taking public transit to work is the norm because the Dutch have figured out how to make cycling and public transit faster than driving.

Isn't the hype more about the relative difference (I don't think most people are claiming NL is a utopia)? The amount of miles driven per capita in the US is twice as much as that of the NL. The percent of trips on bike is 25% in the NL vs 2% in the US. About half of all trips made in the NL are on bike, transit or walking. The other half of trips are made with cars. If the US suddenly had half the amount of driving…

> Isn't the hype more about the relative difference (I don't think most people are claiming NL is a utopia)?

We're talking specifically about self-designated "anti-car" people. I doubt there are any surveys, so we're all just conjecturing, but the rhetoric I see definitely holds NL and Europe generally up as a car-less utopia. For example, the first post on r/anticar is titled "cities built for people rather than cars are so beautiful" and it shows an idyllic picture of a German street. https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticar/comments/mp6t4p/cities_buil...

> The amount of miles driven per capita in the US is twice as much as that of the NL. The percent of trips on bike is 25% in the NL vs 2% in the US. About half of all trips made in the NL are on bike, transit or walking. The other half of trips are made with cars.

I don't see how this is relevant? I don't think anyone in this thread disputes that cycling is more prevalent in NL versus US, and none of this refutes the toplevel claim that NL is a car country nor supports the anti-car rhetoric which suggests that NL is a car-free utopia. Like many "non-anti-car" Americans, I would like to see American transit become more multi-modal, but that's not what we're debating at present.

> However, I am sure that the NL could still make many changes to reduce car ownership if it really wanted to.

Sure (the obvious/extreme example is banning cars by legislation), but this seems circular, because we're implicitly interested in why doesn't the NL public want fewer cars (on the contrary, car ownership was increasing as of 2016)? Like in the US we can plausibly argue that Americans haven't experienced the Dutch cycling/pubtransit system and thus doesn't know what they're missing out on, but that's a much harder argument to make about the Dutch. :)

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