WHY GEN Y DOESN'T CARE ABOUT CARS

Why Gen Y Doesn’t Care About Cars

First things first, it’s not entirely their choice or their fault. If you’re living in your parent’s basement with no job, buying a car probably isn’t at the top of your to-do list. And if you’re flipping burgers for a “living” - gas prices, insurance premiums and lease payments (on top of your college loans) pretty much preclude purchasing that great-looking Prius. This is why we’re seeing fewer and fewer kids rushing to the DMV offices on their 16^th birthday – in fact, more than 25% of all Gen Yrs don’t even have a driver’s license these days and almost 30% of all 19 year-olds aren’t licensed to drive even if they could afford the gas.

We’re witnessing the collision (no pun intended – although the percentage of people over 70 who have driver’s licenses has grown dramatically from 55% a decade ago to more than 80% right now) of a number of different factors, trends, influences and even political considerations which are bringing about seismic changes in the future of the auto industry. The Gen Yrs may be leading the charge, but the changes that are coming will impact all of us and millions of small and large businesses as well.

Some of these developments are already readily apparent and others are just beginning to be emerge.  For the car guys in particular, it looks to me like the worst is yet to come.  But if the ads on the Super Bowl are any indication, Detroit still doesn’t get it and they continue to ignore the demographic tidal wave that’s soon to roll right over them.

I see six major areas of concern, change and diminished connections to our cars and the Gen Yrs are front and center in the critical conversations about these issues that are taking place in every home and business across the country.

Emotional Ties     

There was a time – not so long ago – when owning and operating a car was a patriotic expression and a part of our civic duty. We were exhorted to “See the USA in our Chevrolet” and Chevys hummed with “The Heartbeat of America”. We felt that our cars (even though mass produced) were concrete expressions of our individual identities and – more importantly – they were definitely evidence of our status and station in life. Everyone knew a successful doctor and knew he was successful because he drove a new Cadillac every year.

Today, if there’s any emotional attachment left in our connection to our cars, it’s demonstrably a negative one – our cars are too expensive, maintenance and parking burdens, necessary evils, costly pollution machines, etc. and we’d just as soon be rid of them.  Where are the Jetsons and teleportation when we really need them?

Mechanical Abilities

We used to have a significant portion of the population including many young people who actually knew something about the insides of their cars and how (at least minimally) to maintain them because it was something they could learn in school. Today, auto shop (and in fact virtually all vocational training) is almost entirely gone from public education and the kids don’t know any more than their parents about what to do when the car stops running except to call AAA.

And even if we were inclined to pop the hood and try to fix something, we’d have little or no prospect of doing anything other than getting our hands dirty because everything from the distributor to the diagnostics in today’s cars is computer-controlled and so integrated into the overall operating system of the vehicle that a layman has zero chance of doing anything but damage by trying to fix something beyond a flat tire and even that’s a challenge.

Technical Constraints

Another old-time way we could learn at least a little about our vehicles was to hang around the neighborhood gas station and watch the mechanics and other grease monkeys fiddle around with their cars. Not today. And even less tomorrow as we can expect to see fewer and fewer fuel stations (they may not even be pumping gas pretty soon) which are equipped to do repairs because – as small and local businesses with limited capital and other resources – along with many independent garages and auto repair shops – they simply won’t have the financial ability to purchase the sophisticated and costly equipment needed or to hire the properly-trained personnel necessary to service and repair the next few generations of computer-controlled vehicles. So say goodbye to your neighborhood garage and gas station.

Economic Realities

As noted above, the costs of owning and operating a car just keep increasing and there’s no end in sight. Fuel, insurance, maintenance and leasing costs are just part of the story. Every city, county and state in the country is piling on with additional compliance and regulatory costs and then there’s parking to boot. (And the “boot” if you don’t pay your parking tickets.) And, as transportation alternatives increase, the need and the desire to own your own car quickly diminishes.

You’ve got I-Go car sharing and Zipcar. I love their slogan – it says it all for this generation: “The car for people who don’t want one.”  There are shared ride programs, company provided transportation plans and the old reliables: biking and walking. The Gen Y stats (16-34 year olds) are pretty impressive: driving is down (23%); biking is up (122%) and walking is up (37%).

Environmental Considerations

And then there’s Mother Earth. We are seeing increasing demands for cleaner and more efficient vehicle operation. There is mounting pressure to examine and develop alternatives to fossil fuels and to construct additional large-scale public transportation systems. All of these “movements” are near and dear to the hearts of the Gen Yrs as well and they can be expected to employ their social networks and the new crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding tools to raise their voices and substantially increase their influence in these areas.

Political/Regulatory Changes

Finally, there are the politicians. It turns out that polluters are pretty low-hanging fruit and easy targets (even when they’re your neighbors) and we can expect initiatives from the Obama administration to increase restrictions and raise fees and taxes in ways calculated to drive polluting vehicles off the roads and even out of the country.

Similarly, there will be increasing regulatory attacks on gas guzzlers and older, fuel-inefficient vehicles to get them off the highways as well. Sadly, many of these used cars were the entry-level transportation vehicles for younger and less affluent consumers and we can expect to see them disappearing at an increasing rate.

PP:  “You Get What You Work for, Not What You Wish for”