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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

#801

Post by danrocks »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #593
ryandrake wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a financial literacy problem. Financing a rapidly depreciating asset like a car is a very poor choice, and maybe younger people are waking up to this. You're basically underwater as soon as you drive a new car off the lot. If you have to have a car, buy a used one for cash.

I don't understand why people are so against financing. Sure, buying a new car isn't wise, but even now with 5-6% interest rates you're likely still coming out ahead if you finance a car and invest the rest. It's like a credit card. They are easily misused, but there's not really a downside if you use them responsibly.

Anybody able to beat the interest rate on the car loan plus depreciation rate consistently year over year should probably start their own hedge fund.

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

#802

Post by zip1234 »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #632
zip1234 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are a classic "tragedy of the commons" due to how much space they take up and the infrastructure they take up. The places where it might've been 'nice to go for a drive' are not that way anymore because they have changed by everyone having a car. The windy country roads without anyone living on them are now filled with people that 'want to live in the country' but ironically do not because everyone wanted that.

> The windy country roads without anyone living on them are now filled with people that 'want to live in the country' but ironically do not because everyone wanted that. See also: national parks

Yellowstone is essentially a loop. Have busses going each direction every 5 minutes and no more traffic jams.

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

#803

Post by thefringthing »

plandis wrote: post #763
MengerSponge wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Car registration fees / gas taxes do pay for that?

Driving is net subsidized, even before pricing in these externalities.

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

#804

Post by Xorakios »

stuckinhell wrote: post #605
e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a kid who grew up in a dense city, I can’t imagine having to be driven by my parents to see a friend or to play some sports, instead of just walking there myself anytime I wanted. I can’t imagine it’s great for the parent either, you have to plan your schedule around your kids and the flexibility just seems miserable.

You might also be discounting a generational change. My coworkers in the city don't let their kids under 13 walk around in the city by themselves either. We often coordinate when we all are planning on doing stuff with our kids, so slack coverage is always 100%

Agree with you on generational difference.

40 years ago I walked to school, played in parks, rode my bike with friends.

Now my grandchildren would be confiscated by Child Protective Services and their parents face prison if anyone under 13 isn't accompanied at all times, both inside and outside their homes, by an adult.

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

#805

Post by wffurr »

BrandonS113 wrote: post #99
wffurr wrote: post #10

There's 138 trains per day between Amsterdam and The Hague. It's faster to take the train than to drive on that trip. Driving in either city in an exercise in frustration. Why would anyone in a rich country with a high functioning rail system like The Netherlands want to drive? I don't know how many rich countries that describes, but I lived happily for years in Boston in the USA without a car. I have one now but onl…

I had to spend a few months in Holland for work. We we left with the problem of what do do on the weekends. You can't rent bikes if you are not Dutch, and visiting the lovely villages and other places Holland is full of is a time consuming exercise in futility unless one has a car. A train is great for Rotterdam-Hague-Amsterdam, not so good for visiting the Bosch museum in 's-Hertogenbosch. Holland has a great road s…

I rented a bike in Holland no problem. Weird that you weren't able to do so.

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

#806

Post by RickJWagner »

I sold my car (a nice Lexus IS F) during covid, when used car prices went nuts. I had been calculating some healthy depreciation in the years ahead and saw this as an opportunity to get a good price for the car before things returned to normal and my car lost value. (It seems to have worked.)

I now find that I didn't much need the car. My wife has a car, we share it. I'm a car enthusiast, but now I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever go back to two cars for the pair of us.

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

#807

Post by mantas »

Xylakant wrote: post #637
mantas wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've no idea for US either, but 600 USD/mo looks weird. For me here in Lithuania it was cheaper than that even while I was paying off my car. Now driving a paid-off-but-well-maintained car is more like €150/month for ~ 1k km a month with occasional maintenance, insurance and rare downtown parking. Obviously it is higher than that when including previous lease payments, but historical price is going down every month.…

By "were honest" I mostly mean "honest with themselves". There are a lot of costs that are easy to forget or ignore. The cost of parking in the city. The occasional repair. Having to tow your car, because it broke. Deprecation of a valuable asset. Very few people take stock of what they actually spend on their car, because it's hard and it's constantly shifting. Some costs are annually and (mostly) independent of you…

That feels like a strawman because most people do knowledge those costs. But they are negligible in the long run. €300 for a tire set over 5 years (but probably longer) literally €5/month. Occasional oil change works out to similar costs.

Of course, someone may run 20" wheels and then prices skyrocket. But then it’a no longer pure transit costs and more like an expensive hobby.

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

#808

Post by dkarl »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #688
ghaff wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, per my other comment, whether or not they want to/need to own a car, being able to drive one is a pretty essential life skill. If nothing else, if you can't/won't drive, you'll be cut off from a lot of employment opportunities.

No, it absolutely is not an essential life skill. They will learn it if it becomes advantageous for them to learn it. I understand offering, I don't understand insisting if they say they don't want to.

A need for driving can arise much more quickly than you can learn and get licensed. So many teenagers assume they're going to live in places with dense public transportation networks, but it will take decades to build enough housing and transit for them. The economic winners will get to live their desired lifestyle of density and transit, and the rest will find themselves awkwardly bridging the lag between our aspirations and our infrastructure.

"The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."

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

#809

Post by robertlagrant »

mcv wrote: post #226
robertlagrant wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> getting stuck in traffic is extremely unpleasant in ways that similar delays on other forms of travel don’t really replicate But you also don't have to take a 3 hour coach ride because the driver or other staff's union is striking. It's just you and your car.

But that's again because these trains are run for profit, cutting every corner they can, and underpaying their employees. I'd prefer to see trains nationalised and run as national infrastructure with the goal of luring more commuters into mass transit. Because that will mean enormous savings in pollution, traffic jams, noise, and road maintenance.

Even when they were nationalised they were terrible. The biggest problem isn't whether it's for profit or not. The biggest problem is the relatively vast value for money, and value in general, of cars, even with extremely large fuel taxes imposed. People don't want to pay a lot of money for transport because they've seen how much value a car gives, and so having the cost and large numbers of people required to operate a really high quality train would require more than anything raising ticket prices significantly.

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

#810

Post by xputer »

fleddr wrote: post #109
wffurr wrote: post #10

There's 138 trains per day between Amsterdam and The Hague. It's faster to take the train than to drive on that trip. Driving in either city in an exercise in frustration. Why would anyone in a rich country with a high functioning rail system like The Netherlands want to drive? I don't know how many rich countries that describes, but I lived happily for years in Boston in the USA without a car. I have one now but onl…

The US anti-car narrative often refers to the Netherlands as some kind of beacon of proper public infrastructure, whilst not knowing a damn thing about it. First, let's establish that the Netherlands is a car country. We have 11 million cars on a population of 17 million. On a typical day, 1 million people use public transport. Cars are the norm, not trains or bicycles. Public transport is rarely faster, not even in…

Well it seems you're criticizing Americans' rosy view of Dutch public infrastructure without realizing how absurd the US is in terms of infrastructure. I challenge you to visit the US and not use a car at all. In many cities you wouldn't even be able to get out of the airport. Yet Schiphol has a massive station underneath it with trains that can take you, not only to Amsterdam, but to virtually any city and even small town in the country.
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