Auto manufacturers today are scratching their heads, trying to figure out why the millennial generation has little-to-no interest in owning a car. What car makers are failing to see is that this generation's interests and priorities have been redefined in the last two decades, pushing cars to the side while must-have personal technology products take up the fast lane.
It's no secret the percentage of new vehicles sold to 18- to 34-year-olds has significantly dropped over the past few years. Many argue this is the result of a weak economy, that the idea of making a large car investment and getting into more debt on top of college loans is too daunting for them. But that's not the "driving" factor, especially considering that owning a smartphone or other mobile device, with its monthly fees of network access, data plan, insurance, and app services, is almost comparable to the monthly payments required when leasing a Honda Civic.
...
With recent studies showing a huge decline in auto sales among the millennial marketplace, it's no wonder auto manufacturers are in a mild state of panic, realizing they're missing out on a generation that wields $200 billion in purchasing power. Numbers don't lie, and over the last few years statistics have shown a significant drop in young people who own cars, as well as those with driver's licenses—and that decline continues among the youngest millennials, meaning this is not a trend that's going away anytime soon. From 2007 to 2011, the number of cars purchased by people aged 18 to 34, fell almost 30%, and according to a study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, only 44% of teens obtain a driver's license within the first year of becoming eligible and just half, 54% are licensed before turning 18. This is a major break with the past, considering how most teens of the two previous generations would race to the DMV for their license or permit on the day of their 16th birthday.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:42PM
They are fucked when it comes to money, so they will figure how to live without car.
Next up: Millenials and housing.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:07AM
My friend purchased his first death trap for a bit under $1000 (working minimum wage) so he could make it to concerts. Craigslist assures me the same deals are available today.
I understand that every generation previously had their Bentley presented to them at 16 to drive on gold lined streets, but I don't see many Millenials in the alms house, and the little gadgets they have to document their lives cost as much as my friend's car.
(Score: 2) by dingus on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:03AM
You can get phones for cheap. That, and they're pretty much a necessity for modern life, unlike a car(in most cities -- some places have terrible or nonexistent public transport).
I can say with confidence that if I hadn't been given my dad's truck, I would be riding my bike or taking the bus. It's just not worth.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:00AM
Exactly: phones are considered a necessity, but are expensive when you have school debt.
They make it seem like "hey, why don't they drop their phones and bills and buy a car"... they can only afford one, so they choose their phones.
My wife and I, though, need cars and so cannot afford mobile phones.
It's one or the other for lots of people, and getting worse for those with large school debt who can't find good paying jobs.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:19AM
Somehow I've managed a career without ever having more than a landline.
You might want to rethink your idea of "necessity".
Playing Candy Crush while you wait in line ain't exactly it.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:30AM
Depends how much you use the phone (and probably on where you live). I just got a landline for the first time in over a decade, and only because it's a requirement for FTTH here (there's no phone connected to it). I dropped the landline because it wasn't economic. Back then, it cost £10/month just for line rental, and I was spending £2-3/month on a pre-pay mobile. Since then, mobile prices have gone down, landline line rental has gone up. I now pay 3p/minute for calls, 2p/text, and 1p/MB of data and spend about £1/month on my phone.
I bought my first Smartphone (Nokia N80) as a cost-saving measure too. It had a built-in SIP client and the cost of calls using SIP over WiFi was lower than the cost of mobile calls by enough that the device paid for itself over about half of its lifetime. Now, aside from calls abroad and freephone numbers, it's cheaper to use the mobile, so I spend about £5/year on my SIP account, mostly to call my mother, who now lives in France.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:22PM
Uh, cellular service costs less than a landline, dipshit.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:04PM
In cellular-only households I've seen, there's a phone per persno. Do two to four cellular phones in a household cost less than one landline?
(Score: 2) by pendorbound on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:56PM
In a family shared plan, it's pretty close.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:41PM
Not these days. Now where I am, where a traditional phoneline starts at $30, and VOIP is cheaper still.
Meanwhile, shared cell plans *start* at $75-80, for a mere 1 or 2 GB, and that's just for the *first* phone on the plan.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:40PM
Yeah, $75/month (plus tax) is what I pay for my contract. But I get a hell of a lot more than "a mere 1 or 2GB". Last month I used 56 gigs. That $75/month gets me 450 minutes, unlimited texts, unlimited data (no caps, no throttling) and a subsidized phone (the usual -- $200 for the latest model Galaxy or iPhone.)
My parents have two phones on a single non-contract account, and they pay around $30/month. Plus an initial $100-$200 to buy each phone (an iPhone and a Galaxy, two year old models). Although they don't use a ton of data -- that 2GB/month would cost them an extra $10-15, but that's still below $50/month.
I live in Rhode Island, they're in Pennsylvania, and we're using different providers although they're both Sprint MVNOs -- Credo Mobile and Ting.
So you can get a phone for $100 plus around fifty a month for service which you can cancel or adjust at any time if money is tight. Buy a car and you're out at least a grand, and possibly in debt which you can't just cancel. Plus gas, plus maintenance, which could be more than a hundred a month even on a car that's in pretty good shape. So maybe you buy a halfway decent used car, and the *loan payments* are about the same as a monthly cellphone bill, but there's no way in hell that the total cost of a car is that low.
You might be able to afford a *bicycle* and the associated maintenance for around the cost of a mobile phone or two...my ex commuted several miles every day by bike and she definitely spent at least $50/month maintaining that thing, repairing bent rims and punctured tires and such. She did have a cellphone though -- a two year old iPhone, cracked so badly that big chunks of the glass and LCD were missing and you could see the aluminum frame. Still on her parents' family plan, which her and her siblings helped pay for because the parents couldn't afford it either. She didn't own a PC, so that iPhone was her only means of communication. Maybe a landline would have been a bit cheaper (although it would actually be three landlines vs one family plan -- the users of that family plan were spread across three states) but a landline can't browse the web which means riding several miles to a library or something, and it can't get text messages which would have caused some issues with her job since they did some of their scheduling via texts. So the landlines would have been about the same cost as the cellphones, without providing anywhere near the same level of access. Plus the fact that the cellphone is always with you, so you don't miss a call (missing calls repeatedly could cost you your job if you're in a low wage position) and also provides a very valuable tool in case of emergency.
Cellphones vs landlines isn't a fair comparison, as the phone is also a computer and a stereo system and an emergency beacon and a watch and so much more if that's all you have. And anyone who says cellphones are the same cost as a car is ignoring at least half the cost of the car.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:07PM
And VoiP (can do that at the library) is even cheaper still.
What's your point fuckwad?
Back when (insert regional disaster) happened, all the cell towers were at over capacity and quite a few were down. Couldn't make a call.
Landlines operated just fine.
Within the realm of necessity is the ability to make calls during disasters. Landlines are incredibly robust.
Did you get that bitch?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:25PM
Landlines are seldom affected by natural disasters - but they do take a fucking sometimes. Most frequently, flooding takes them out of service. A very unfortunately located fallen tree can take out areas of land line service.
You've made a decent point, but that point isn't always true.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:59PM
Depends if it's a real landline or not. Around here the POTS are mostly being replaced with fiber or cable connections, which means that they go down whenever the power goes down. I've had a great deal of luck with cellular during power outages and what not. Most of the cell towers have redundant power anyways, so as long as my handset has power I'm fine.
A relatively cheap solar set up ensures that I can have power for things like that indefinitely.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:22PM
That is true, and untrue. My landline costs about $20/month. With that landline, I can call anything within about 25 miles, except I can't call across the state line, without paying a fee. I no longer have a long distance carrier, so that makes it difficult to make a long distance call on the landline. I'd have to jump through a couple hoops, and connect with a long distance carrier in order to do so. BUT - long distance calls from a land line are pretty expensive.
So - a landline is cheaper than any cell service, if you only get the basics. But if you need to call further than your local calling area, the landline gets expensive real fast.
In today's world your freinds and relatives most certainly do NOT all live within any given area code, let alone local calling area. Even small businesses need to make frequent calls outside of their own area codes, and larger corporations think global.
So, yeah, I can almost agree that a cell phone is a necessity for people getting started in this world today.
It's not really a necessity for me. The wife and kids think so, but I don't.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:41PM
> cellular service costs less than a landline, dipshit.
Where YOU live, maybe!
Not here. $35/mo for landline, $45 for the very cheapest cell plan.
(Score: 2) by cykros on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:24AM
$40/mo (no contract) here will give you unlimited talk, text, and 3g data. As long as you're in the city, coverage is fine.
If you're out in the middle of nowhere, things are different. But then, the real thing to point out here is just how few millenials you'll be likely to run into out there. Millenials and cities are pretty inseparable.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:15PM
"Playing Candy Crush while you wait in line"
Yeah, but, what about Zombie Apocalypse?
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:44AM
My wife and I, though, need cars and so cannot afford mobile phones.
What? You can get a functioning mobile for £30.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:28PM
The most recently purchased feature phone in my home cost $20US. Cheap, cheap, cheap. But, it's not the cost of the phone that makes cell service expensive. It's the monthly fee. I know, $45 or $55 monthly isn't a great deal - but it's a deal if you don't have reliable employment.
Millenials often work two or three jobs, because the corporations aren't willing to put them on full time. That seems to be true, because several of the people I work with have second jobs. To them, it just seems natural to have two or more jobs.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday September 16 2016, @10:05AM
Is there no way to get a cheap, low-upkeep service?
It's certainly possible here in the UK. Generally people go with contracts for high-consumption, and pay-as-you-go for low-consumption.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 16 2016, @02:42PM
If there is a cheaper service, I'm not aware of it. The first tier carriers want more than $100 US. The second tier carriers, like I use, start out around $40. The third tier carriers offer really cheap deals, but none of them cover my area. People further out in the boonies than I am certainly can't get those low rent deals.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:56PM
I paid $30 for a used flip-phone, and $100 a year for more service than I can use at TMobile.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:30AM
$30 for a used flip phone? Christ, as long as you're throwing money around like that, how about sharing some around here. You can buy them new for $12.99 on fry's.com [frys.com], and that's only as high as it is because they're becoming a bit of a specialty item. $30 will buy you a smartphone over at Walmart [walmart.com].
(Score: 1) by tftp on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:24AM
You can get phones for cheap. That, and they're pretty much a necessity for modern life, unlike a car
I don't know why a phone is needed "for modern life", unless you define the modern life as one that revolves around the phone :-)
I have an old flip phone, but I keep it only for emergencies. I rarely, if ever, call from it, and almost never receive valuable calls on it. Most of my communication these days is over email and Skype. I have them over Wi-Fi nearly at any place where I can be. Perhaps, if I were a UPS delivery guy, for example, then I could reconsider. But my day is nowhere that mobile. If someone cannot email me while I am getting from A to B, they can always call me if that's so important. If not, it can wait until I get to where I am going.
So the phone is not relevant to my life. However a car is. Sure, I live in a city now, and there are buses. But they are very expensive, and they incur too much overhead - they move slowly, stop at every corner, and come not all that often. I can be where I'm going in a car before the bus even shows up at the stop! My time is my life, and my life is finite. I do not want to waste time on things that I do not like - and certainly waiting for a bus is not a valuable investment of time. (If for you it is, then you surely need the smartphone and a data plan, as you will spend a good chunk of your life waiting :-) For me the car is an instrument that allows me to do more; often it allows me to get to places that the bus just doesn't go - such as to homes of some of my friends, who live just a few miles away from the city. A few miles in a car is not even worth mentioning. A few miles walking - that is something else entirely. Buses are also not all that great when you need to carry bulky stuff - and by "bulky" I mean anything that is larger than a small box. An average coffee maker is probably OK, but FSM forbid you also want to buy a pillow, let alone two. You won't have enough hands to carry all that. But with a car you just throw them in and carry them home.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by dingus on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:16AM
Then your life is different from a lot of peoples'. Get over it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nuke on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:23AM
Dingus wrote :- Then your life is different from a lot of peoples'.
So is yours. I use phones when i need to, but the cost is trivial compared with other costs in my life. I don't understand how in a matter of about 20 years, phones have become such a major (or the major) expense in so many people's lives - a triumph of marketing I guess. In town I see about 30% of people are walking around with a mobile to their ear, which suggests that they are spending perhaps 20-25% of their waking lives on the phone. WTF for? Who is it at the other end who needs all that information? People did not need it before about 20 years ago.
At work I use the company phone. At home (in the UK) I have a landline costing me about 25 GBP per month (excluding internet connection which is another 15 GBP). Most of the calls from my landline are at an off-peak rate (because at peak rate times I am at work). I also have a PAYG dumb mobile that cost me about 50GBP eight years ago and I need top it up only occasionally because I use it only if I have a particular need to, not to unload verbal diarrhea.
(Score: 2) by SDRefugee on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:31PM
Sure.. cellphones are expensive if you have to have the latest/greatest, and "unlimited" data/minutes/text.. But.. you can have a perfectly usable older smartphone that you BUY from ebay/swappa or many other places. and steer yourself to something like Ting, a MVNO on both tmobile/sprint's networks.. I have a not-so-new Nexus 4 on Android 5.1.1 that I paid $65 for on ebay and wife has a Nokia Windows phone we paid $35 for, and our phone bill each month is around $35 for the both of us using Ting.. We're not yakkers, and don't use a heck of a lot of data/text, so this works fine. I'm a geek, but I sure the hell don't need the latest/greatest and the heavy costs that accompany these things, since wife and I are retired...
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2016, @05:38AM
And hey, that Android 5.1.1 is only wide open to a handful or two of glaring security vulnerabilities. Might be time to build 6.0 [androidpit.com] or later...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:34PM
"a triumph of marketing I guess"
I think the greatest triumph of marketing has to be bottled water. People actually PAY for a drink of water. And, in many cases, that water is of questionable origin and purity. Water. Ordinary tap water. People PAY FOR IT!! A dollar, a dollar and a half, two bucks, and more, for just a little drink of water.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nuke on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:19PM
I think the greatest triumph of marketing has to be bottled water. .... Water. Ordinary tap water.
I agree. I was behind a delivery truck two days ago and the ad on the back made no bones about it being bottled tap water. "Mains water in a bottle" it said. Cannot remember the brand (I am in the UK btw). They probably stick it through a filter or something just to claim some added value. Jeez, even the Romans had mains water and we are going back to carting it around in bottles. Civilisation is sliding backwards - women will be fetching the bottles on their heads next.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:57PM
I was offered a free car from one of my parents' friends when I was in high school, but the costs associated with driving a car don't stop with the car itself. There's the other add ons that you're required to have an insurance for teenage boys is rather expensive.
In fact, I didn't even bother getting my license until I was 19 because I didn't feel the need to drive. The bus got me where I wanted to go and if I did need to drive, chances are somebody else I knew was going there as well.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:02PM
My friend purchased his first death trap for a bit under $1000
A family member told me her 21-year-old son has a license but doesn't drive because insurance for a male under 25 would cost more than that per year.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:43PM
I have problems with the insurance scams, as well as the auto financing scams. The last vehicle we bought, we walked into a sales office, and asked, "What do you have for $3000 cash?" We were shown a half dozen cars, the wife really liked one of them, and we took it.
Now - obviously, the cars we drive aren't very valuable. Paying a couple thousand per year for insurance is ridiculous. Paying three or four thousand per year is insane.
For a long while, Geico seemed to offer the best deal around - then Shelter beat them out. We are happy to change insurers just as often as the rates start climbing.
Long story short - we pay about $1300 annually for insurance. That's for several vehicles, including a motorcycle, and allows our over 25 year old sons to drive them - except the motorcycle. Only the youngest son or myself can operate that particular vehicle, thanks to the way the policy is written. Off-road machines are simply not insured.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:24AM
If you look at the data, homeownership is (and has been) going down for some time. When broken out by age, there is a precipitous drop in the rate for people less than 35 years old. Here is the official census data: http://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/index.html [census.gov]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:29AM
The car for prior generations provided a sense of freedom, 'limitless opportunity', 'a temporary home', and most importantly: entertainment.
Nowadays all but the temporary home can be provided by your cell phone or internet access device, with at most a console or portable to cover the entertainment if your phone/internet device is not capable for your needs.
Furthermore car repair costs have only gone up in recent years, and while some cars will run for longer periods before needing work, most require a higher level of maintenance than previous generation vehicles. Especially anything using 0W20 oil (which comes out to a quart every 1000 miles or so, whereas many previous generations of cars would not significantly consume engine oil before the oil change time was reached. Gas mileage vs oil consumption should really have been a consideration in EPA testing, but it is not as long as the tailpipe emissions are clean. The result is probably more cars consuming oil, being ignored by their owners, then having their engines damaged due to insufficient lubrication, leading to increased emissions and increased future oil consumption due to the new looser tolerances and same thin oil.
Really though, with social networking most people have SOMEONE in their circle who they can mooch rides off of when they need it, so unless they are working their own job, can't get there by bus or bike, and can't work out a deal with someone else, they don't really need a car themselves, and not having it saves thousands of dollars a year and the stress of driving (which can be more than the multi-hour bus or bike commute in some counties/states.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:48AM
I don't think that we have that problem in Europe but, if we have, I'm sure someone will let me know fairly quickly. From my point of view, oil levels rarely even need checking nowadays. If the in-car indicator says oil is good, then it is good. I have my oil replaced every annual service (which is itself not strictly necessary any more, but I am a traditionalist). However, I certainly wouldn't even consider buying a car that uses a quart of oil every 1000 miles or so. It must be throwing oil all over the place ...
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:09PM
My car in highschool used\leaked\burned a quart a month. Oil was all the way down the bottom, and the acrid blue tendrils of smoke were a common sight coming from the top of the exhaust manifolds.
I made the mistake about changing the oil in it once, and it came out looking like I had just poured it in. I kicked myself for wasting 5 months of oil lol.
Totally worth it, spent 300 dollars on it, put maybe 500 into repairs over its two year life with me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:27PM
You mentioned something key that is not usually acknowledged: many "car-free" people MOOCH off the car owners when they need one! Cost shifting at its finest.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:51PM
The wife and I said "enough is enough" to one of the moochers this past weekend. "I need you to come to Little Rock and pick me up!" That's a five hour round trip. When we pointed that out, he says, "I've got gas money for you!" The answer was, "Do you have $20/hour to pay for our time?" He says "No!" so we says "No!"
The wife is soft hearted though. She told him that she could buy him a Greyhound ticket to Texarkana, and she would pick him up there. He actually turned her down!!
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:00PM
Yee-Haw!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:14AM
Exactly this.
I'd love to own a car. Most of the people I know in my situation and age would love a car. We can't afford it. We can't afford it because the baby boomers who are now scratching their heads privatized everything, replaced fully-funded education with student loans, outsourced professional careers or replaced them with internships and H1Bs, crashed the economy, reverse-mortgaged their homes so we won't even inherit those, and then have the stones to blame us for all this.
Fuck them. I'm never buying a new car now *out of spite*.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:50AM
The baby boomers privatised everything? Except for the things that they kinda-sorta didn't really privatise. Such as, say, Amtrak. And ports. And the mortgage boosting agencies. And all those industries that started out private, but have been heavily regulated to the point of being another arm of the government.
They replaced fully funded education with student loans. Except that they established a deep and rich set of grants, bursaries, scholarships and tax breaks to the point that, if you're going broke with student loans and you're not taking one of the several ways to get them forgiven (the exact list depending on your field of study) that's kind of on you.
Outsourced professional careers. Oh, and created entire new fields of work that didn't even exist when they were born. There are more people working in the USA now than even existed in the country in 1945, and they don't all work for Walbucks and Starmart.
Crashed the economy - that is better and stronger now even after an anaemic excuse for a recovery than it was when Generation X hit the labour market.
Reverse-mortgaged their homes because the Greatest Generation's dream of a social safety net turns out to have been a ponzi scheme.
I'm not even a boomer, and even I can tell you're full of a festering blend of bullshit and poorly directed rage.
Tone down the rage, study the environment, and figure out what to do to fix it, not blame other people for (at best) half-true fairytales of political self-righteousness.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:16AM
At this point the Millennial's tales of woe are reaching such extravagant proportions, they really should be called Generation Dave.
As a point of reference, my mother had to navigate a minefield in order to go to school. I had to nurse her nervous breakdowns before I could start on my own career.
Your lives aren't that terribly bad.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:25AM
Tone down the rage, study the environment, and figure out what to do to fix it, not blame other people for (at best) half-true fairytales of political self-righteousness.
I think that there are plenty of reasons to be completely furious these days. For fuck's sake, millennials are growing up in a time when there is genuine concern for the future well being of the entire planet's eco systems. Humanity itself may not survive for too much longer. That prospect alone would be enough to burst a millennial's vein in a fit of outrage.
And there is no denying that over the last 30 years or so a perfect storm of privatisation has raged through the democratised neo-liberal nation states. And that has had consequences. Some good, a lot of it not so good.
We have a stronger economy now? Yes, very strong if you are one of the people on top. THAT should be plenty obvious by now. And is that the same strong economy that could burst any time now? The one that is pretty much completely fucked under the surface? That economy with the nice and shiny veneer that deludes most of us? The one that is almost completely unsustainable and will drive us all straight off the edge of the cliff? That economy?
Wake the fuck up dude!
I just wish millennials would rid themselves of their social media addictions and actually do something that doesn't involve some variation of "mirror mirror, on the wall, who has the most likes of them all".
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:52PM
Some have. Six of the leaders of the "Umbrella revolution" which disrupted central Hong Kong for months a couple years ago, were just elected to the territory's legislature. They're all in their 20s or 30s.
This means two things:
1) millennials "actually [did] something" by running for power
2) millennials flocked out in huge numbers to vote them in
All the more impressive because this is in the shadow of authoritarian China, which has shown lip service to true democracy in Hong Kong (not that the former British rulers did any better until just before their 100-year lease expired).
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/election-of-hong-kong-activists-means-clashes-ahead-with-beijing-1.3751652 [www.cbc.ca]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:28AM
They replaced fully funded education with student loans. Except that they established a deep and rich set of grants, bursaries, scholarships and tax breaks to the point that, if you're going broke with student loans and you're not taking one of the several ways to get them forgiven (the exact list depending on your field of study) that's kind of on you.
What a bullshit, squishy, generic defense. That "deep rich set of grants, etc" does not even approach the nearly free education available to all before the 80s. If it did, then student loan debt wouldn't be well over a trillion dollars. [marketwatch.com] No, millennials are not so universally stupid that they all can't figure out these unnamed ways to discharge their debt. Student loans were financialized in order to make wallstreet billions of dollars at the expense of those least able to carry the load. Your apologia is self-righteous sanctimonious bullshit. Fuck you.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:47PM
Indeed, I wonder who this AC could be and where he might work, and how old he could be to still be drinking that KoolAid. Certainly he could not work in tech, because anyone who has worked in tech longer than 6 months knows how true to life Dilbert is. Or he could be a millenial who won the job lottery and got something working in finance, and is fresh off all the summer parties in the Hamptons that banks throw for their new analysts, and he's thinking boy this is great I sure am the best-and-brightest that EVAR WAZ, but has not yet felt the knives of his colleagues in his back (an occupational hazard in finance) nor truly plumbed how deeply stupid his superiors are.
But it is a vanishingly rare animal in 21st century America who yet spouts the Pollyanna platitudes this one has.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:51PM
This.
You can get some grants. Sure! How about 80% of your tuition? Wow! Amazing! Sounds great!
Except that books, food, bus fare or gas, and rent aren't covered by those grants, very often.
Except that the 20% uncovered by grants in this example exceeds the full amount of tuition in the early '00s - let alone the 80s.
Except that getting post-secondary now is like getting high school in the 90s, and good luck finding scholarships if you're at the bottom of the acceptance list. Maybe a bursary or grant or two. No full coverage unless you have a family with links to a school/union/company that *happens* to have a program that not enough others apply to, to squish you out.
Source: went to uni almost 20 years ago and again now. Undergrad tuition is > now 6x what I first paid and (and is climbing year on year at my institution).
(Score: 1) by Sarasani on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:50AM
...and they don't all work for Walbucks and Starmart.
Indeed, some of the children (!) of millennials in the USA don't work for Walbucks and Starmart (or go to school) because they're too busy trading sex for food [theguardian.com] to feed themselves or their younger siblings.
And this is happening in the world's wealthiest country. What an utter disgrace!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:50PM
They just didn't work or study hard enough, and did not wear anywhere near the sufficient amount of flair [youtube.com]. Hey, some of them even have as many as three or four jobs!! Isn't that incredible, that a young person can have that many opportunities for advancement? Is this a great country, or what?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by rondon on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:13PM
I wish we could figure out who paid this troll. "Deep and rich" set of grants? Sounds like a "deep and rich" fucking by wealthy men who took a system that already favored them and skewed it ever-more in there direction.
Please, continue to pretend that every student has access to money that allows them to go to college on the cheap. I can only hope you experience the despair that you pretend doesn't exist for other people right now.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:54PM
Yeah, this benighted creature is surely part of some ridiculous astro-turfing venture, but it's hard to opine whose. Hillary's? Wouldn't be Trump's, because his slogan is "Make America Great Again," not "America's 100% Great Now." Maybe the student loan industry or Wall Street are watching the student debt internals or millenial employment deficits and are trying to soften the imminent blowback.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:41PM
I don't know what crack you're smoking, or if you have some super secret knowledge that no one else knows, but all that happened with those grants and scholarships was that colleges raised their tuition rates accordingly to soak up the entire pool of available money. And those grants and scholarships were never for non- non-white people to begin with, and even if you managed to land one they never covered anything close to the cost of your college. I had a National Merit Scholarship, which are pretty hard to get, and it covered about $5K/yr for tuition that cost $25K. Super great, guys, thanks!
I have also no idea what you're talking about having your student debt forgiven, because in the mid-90's they changed the bankruptcy laws in the United States to make it impossible to ever get out from under student debt. Or perhaps you're talking about something like ROTC. Yeah, you know what happened to my friends that took that route? One narrowly escaped being stop-lossed to Iraq and/or Afghanistan after giving 4 years' active duty and then 8 years reserve duty (the deal when he signed it was 4 years active duty or 8 years reserves, not both, but they decided to alter the deal...), and the others are still there in Afghanistan, in their 40's!
Real incomes have been on an uninterrupted 40-year slide. Wealth inequality is greater now than it was the era of the Trusts. You're arguing that things are great?
I'm not a boomer or a millenial, but I can observe that you have industrial sized blinders on, or have lived an incredibly charmed life that you have not experienced the vicissitudes of late 20th- and early 21st-century America.
The rage is justified, because it is based on reality. And "figure out how to fix it?" Maybe he should just work & study really hard and watch the rewards roll in for his diligence...? You're the one who is more guilty of believing in fairytales of self-righteousness.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by ShadowSystems on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:37PM
Enjoy a six pack of your favorite on me. Very well said.
My son & I liked to laugh at the bumper stickers on the cars we'd see, until one day we saw one of the "Spending my child's inheretence!" ones. My son asked "Isn't that kinda stupid? I mean if you spend the money we'll need to take care of you in your old age, aren't you pretty much asking to wind up in a leaky cardboard box forgotten under a bridge? Don't nursing homes cost money?"
He was eight years old & the phrase "Out of the mouths of babes" couldn't have been more apt if it had been written for the moment.
I decided right then & there I would *NOT* be spending my son's inheretence since I'd REALLLLLLY like not to spend my "Golden Years" shivvering in the rain & catching rats for food. =-\
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:03AM
i suspect that there are a lot og good used cars on the market, while new cars find it harder to find buyers.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:02AM
That is definitely true: I picked up my current car at 10 years old and 120K miles. And it's running just fine after another 70K miles. Why buy a super-expensive new car on credit when I can pay cash for an older car that does the job nicely?
But yes, the reason my peers aren't buying cars is that they can't afford them. Or if they can afford them, they'd rather save the money if at all possible so they might someday have the beginnings of a nest egg. I did that early in my career, and it saved my butt in a big way.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Informative) by Dr Spin on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:02AM
When I went to have our 10 year old Ford serviced, I told the mechanic we were looking to replace it this year.
He said "I would not, if I were you. The new ones are not as reliable as the old ones". The large amount of
electronics in a modern car is a serious liability.
My younger son does not have a car because
Nowhere to park it
Hit by bogus whiplash claims, his insurance would be very high.
His mates who don't have cars would expect lifts all the time.
He uses Uber, Karhoo and Zip cars.
I had a car at his age because: he who has the car, gets the girls.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 1) by tisI on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:12PM
Since the 80's, all decent paying blue collar jobs have been sent to China/Mexico/NotHere as their labor is pennies on the dollar.
No jobs, no money, no sales figures. Corporate america have buttfucked themselves.
All your elected politicians are responsible for this.
The shiny new foreign made chevy/furds now costs $50K, and who the fuck can afford that on min wage from working @ McDogfoods?
duh
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:54PM
That's part of it, but it's more complicated. The population is getting increasingly concentrated in urban areas where driving sucks. Transit systems are getting better and better, but even without the bus or a subway system, there's more available to do within walking range. And in much of the US there's an increased focus on providing people with safe ways of biking around the city. Especially around here where they're using bike lanes as an excuse to screw up traffic for drivers.
There's also a cost though, not just the cost of the car, but the cost of the insurance, the cost of the gas, the cost of parking and so forth.
The other thing is that motorcycles and scooters are getting more and more popular for young people. The cost of them can be less than the cost of taking the bus on a regular basis, but at a fraction of the cost of driving a car. Then there's the ride share companies that provide a car when you need it rather than having to commit to the car for many years.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:48PM
The article seems to have figured out the answer. Young people today socialize more online so there is less need for transportation, they spend more money on technology instead of a vehicle, and they often are saving money for school or other uses.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:36AM
Young people today socialize more online so there is less need for transportation, they spend more money on technology instead of a vehicle, and they often are saving money for school or other uses.
All true -- and I'd add, rather than "saving money for school," many of them are also paying back student loans. (Which are much larger and given to many more people than in past generations.) The combination of a student loan payment and a cell phone bill could easily add up to the cost of a car payment + insurance.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Snotnose on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:48AM
I didn't have a 5 mile dick, so socializing online would not have met my needs when I was in my 20s. I most definitely wanted to be in her personal space, persuade her to let me closer, and over the course of 1-3 social interactions get my dick wet.
Owning a car, having a good paying job, and being responsible were indispensable in my quest to get my dick wet.
If you want to play who has the best selfie, then I feel sorry for you.
Every time a Christian defends Trump an angel loses it's lunch.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by julian on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:05AM
Millennials are less sexually active than previous generations. [washingtonpost.com]
Some of us have written off that entire aspect of the human condition as an impractical and unnecessary distraction from other things that make us happy--and with less risk/cost. I realize I'm missing out on something, but that's true no matter what I do or how I spend my time. There's always something else you could be doing, dating and sex just aren't strong competitors anymore.
And since there's no need to impress anyone, we don't need cars or our own place to live--not that we could afford them with our student debt.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:57AM
Congratulations! You have been awarded the coveted Rationalization Of The Year award.
Don't try to mask your loserhood by mumbling about "other things".
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:57PM
Dye your hair blonde and move to East Asia. You'll do fine. It's not even hard, just teach English, or if that occupation is now flooded introduce some twist like "help you write winning essays for American university applications."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:04PM
Stay classy Ethanol.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:31PM
It must suck getting all old and crotchety, at least you probably have a full bathtub so you can get wet anytime you'd like.
The overwhelming importance of dating and sex has drastically reduced. There are a host of reasons as to why, but in the end it boils down to different lifestyles. I like sex, have had plenty of it, but its not something I will majorly adjust my life for. Now starting a family, that requires some serious life changes. If all you want is a little action you don't need a car, just money or low standards.
With your attitude I wouldn't touch any girl who wants some of that.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:46AM
It's funny how the article answers it's own question. "Why can't millennials afford a car, but can afford a mobile phone + bills which COST AS MUCH AS A CAR LEASE?" And no the economy is not the problem, we already though of that...
It's like one of those options dilemmas:
Student Loan, Car, Mobile Phone, House, Social Life, Family.
Pick One.
Sillyness.
(Score: 2) by julian on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:54PM
You can probably pick three of those, but most millennials consider a phone with Internet a necessity (and for good reason) so that's one thing off the bat. Lots of us don't have any other computing device or internet connection so it probably saves money in that sense. If you have student debt that's another, and that's not an expense you can just drop. So that leaves one choice out of home, family, social life, car. Social life usually wins, but a lot of us end up picking student loans twice to get them over with faster.
I've been making 4x payments on mine so I'll be debt free this year. Actually I don't know what I'll do with all my free money/time once that's paid. Those other things don't interest me. Save it I guess?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:56PM
Millennials don't need to own cars because they can just hail an uber and be driven around by GenX who used to own small businesses that failed and are now driving for Uber because GenX are too old to monetize an app but too young to retire but as soon as Musky perfects the elfdriving uber then GenX will finally be allowed to die and nobody will miss the losers who were just temporary meatbag parts for ubers before the arrival of the Musky utopia.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:05AM
Eternal Christmas.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:57AM
Somehow I think if you have a 40 hour/wk job paying uber to take you to and fro is not going to be cost effective. Ok, if you live in NYC it might be. I live in San Diego, my cost of both owning and maintaining a car is going to be, um (pull a number out of my ass) half what an uber driver will cost.
Think about it. I own a car, need to buy gas for it, need to maintain it. I hire an uber driver. They own a car, need to buy gas, maintain it, plus make money. Which do you think will pencil out in the end?
Every time a Christian defends Trump an angel loses it's lunch.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by j-beda on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:15AM
Think about it. I own a car, need to buy gas for it, need to maintain it. I hire an uber driver. They own a car, need to buy gas, maintain it, plus make money. Which do you think will pencil out in the end?
It all depends on how much you drive: One trip per week and it is a lot cheaper to pay the driver and not have to pay the overhead of owning a car that only gets used a few times per month. One hundred trips per week and it is a lot cheaper to not be paying for the driver's wage. Where the cross over point between one and one hundred is left to the reader as an exercise.
Yes, hiring a driver means you need to pay for the car costs plus the driver profit, but you only pay for a fraction of the total car costs. Owning a car means you do not have that "driver cost" expense, but then you pay for all of the car costs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:54AM
Plus you can still play Pokemon Go reasonably safely while someone else drives ;).
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:40AM
I live in San Diego
Of all the places I've visited, San Diego is probably the one that is most hostile to people who don't drive. On one trip, we stayed in a hotel that's just across the road from a strip mall. One of my colleagues checked in and explained to the clerk that he didn't have a car, so didn't need valet parking, but did need to pick up a local SIM card so wanted to know the way to the nearest phone shop. The clerk gave him driving directions in spite of having been told 30 seconds earlier that he didn't have a car. The nearest bus stop to the hotel was only accessible by car. Wonderful climate, but definitely a city completely built around the idea of the automobile.
Think about it. I own a car, need to buy gas for it, need to maintain it. I hire an uber driver. They own a car, need to buy gas, maintain it, plus make money. Which do you think will pencil out in the end?
Between depreciation, road tax, servicing, and insurance, the cost of owning a car here is at least £100/month even if you never drive it. On top of that, if you do drive it then fuel costs money too. The fixed costs are sufficiently high that it's a lot cheaper to rent a car (even a car with a driver) if you're not using it that much.
When I bought my first house, places just outside of town that would have required me to buy a car were a lot cheaper. I considered them a bit, but between the appreciation on property vs depreciation on the car, over a 10-year period it didn't make financial sense. The difference in mortgage payments would have been similar to the cost of operating a car, but the money paid to the mortgage was on an appreciating asset. Oh, and I could go out in the evenings and still be able to walk home a little bit drunk, whereas driving home equally drunk would have been a very bad idea.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:46PM
I've ran in to weird car-oriented behavior in San Diego also BUT the city has a good transit system once you get dialed in to it. It's easy to get to all the major parks, Tiajuana, and the beaches. Walking around downtown is easy. Walking/bicycling mission beach is easy.
In my experience, though, the hotels have really wanted to rent us cars.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:22AM
Riding as a single passenger with Uber, you're probably right (I haven't done the math, though). However, Uber also offers Uber Pool, where one driver picks up multiple passengers going to the same area; and this is a lot cheaper. (Lyft offers a similar service called Lyft Line.) Turns out that even the president of the LA Taxicab commission [buzzfeed.com] is using Uber Pool to get to work.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:01PM
In NYC the absolute best transportation option is a foldable bike you can pop into a bag and take into work with you. There are lots of protected bike lanes now, enough people commute by bike to give you safety in numbers, and the foldable option means you don't have to worry about the availability/placement of bike racks or damage to or theft of your bike.
The second best option is the bikeshare program, $130/yr w/ unlimited free 45-minute rides (that's enough to get you to work in most cases). The stations aren't everywhere yet, but if you're in a covered area it's damn convenient.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:12PM
Think about it. I own a car, need to buy gas for it, need to maintain it. I hire an uber driver. They own a car, need to buy gas, maintain it, plus make money. Which do you think will pencil out in the end?
It depends on which of you is under 25. After the twenty-fifth birthday, I'm told car insurance rates drop precipitously. So your Uber driver makes money on being in a lower insurance risk bracket.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:56PM
Cars today suck. My last Honda lasted me 24 years and was still in great shape when I sold it. My current VW is only 7 years old and it is dying (I can't afford to keep it running). No wonder kids today don't want to buy cars. You will save a lot of money if you can get by without a car.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:15AM
Without a car, you need to live in a big city. The good ones range from crazy-expensive to OMG WTF expensive. For home ownership, it's a shift of the decimal point.
IMHO the good deals are in pseudo-suburbia, places that are built kind of like suburbs but not actually being a bedroom community for a big city. Unlike rural areas and true suburbia, you can actually get jobs in these places. Commutes are trivial by car, taking just a few minutes. No, they usually aren't walkable, but you don't face traffic either.
The car-free life is pretty incompatible with having kids. It might work if you are rich, in which case you aren't actually car-free. You're just paying your servants to drive places for you.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:41AM
The reverse is true as well. If you live in a big city, it is much more expensive to own a car. Parking either at work or if you live in an apartment without parking. Why not use Uber for in town trips, and Zipcar for occasional longer ones?
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:22AM
Dunno, toddler twins chanting "Go mommy GO!" are cute while their mother is pulling them with her bike.
Public transit were I live also allow accompanied children (under 6) to ride free of charge.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:02AM
According to USA today it costs 9000/year to own a car. That's $750/mo. If you live in the city the cost of parking drives up cost of owning a car considerably on top of that.
I dunno owning a car in the city is pretty pointless.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:20AM
According to USA today it costs 9000/year to own a car
That is beyond ridiculous. You can buy a used car every year and still be well below that figure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:30AM
Insurance.
Gasoline for 10,000 miles
Maintenance
It adds up.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:53AM
Insurance. Gasoline for 10,000 miles. Maintenance
Insurance: $300/yr. Gasoline: $30 mpg, 10K miles = 333 gal * $3 = $1,000. Maintenance: in this scenario = $0, as you junk the car at the end of the period and buy a new one. $9K - $1,300 = $7,700. You certainly can buy a car for less than that. I sold one of my cars, still running after 250K miles, for $700.
The figure of $9K/yr may work only if you continuously lease an exceptionally expensive, brand new car. Here are some musings [edmunds.com] on the subject of cost. They offer this table:
Leasing=$23,476/6yr, New=$18,417/6yr, Used=$15,570/6yr.
If you divide these numbers by 6 years of the financing scenario, you get this:
Leasing=$3,912/yr, New=$3,119/yr, Used=$2,595/yr.
As you can see, these numbers are less than a third of the number that is claimed by the publication - and they are talking about a pretty good car - a 3-year-old midsize sedan. A car that is 10 or 15 years old may not run as great, but it will cost you 10-20% of the price. You may have to repair it more often, though.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:07AM
Insurance: $300/yr. Gasoline: $30 mpg, 10K miles = 333 gal * $3 = $1,000. Maintenance: in this scenario = $0, as you junk the car at the end of the period and buy a new one. $9K - $1,300 = $7,700. You certainly can buy a car for less than that. I sold one of my cars, still running after 250K miles, for $700.
That's a fantasy, at least where I live. Car insurance rates vary wildly, depending on where you live/drive.
A number of years ago when I was driving quite a bit for work (consulting with clients in a couple hundred mile radius), I was renting cars all the time, and even picking up long-term rentals. This continued for some time, so I considered buying a car.
One of the first things I did was price out insurance. I had a clean driving record (no accidents within 4 years, no points on my license) and priced out insurance for a used car. Just the minimum liability required by my state, without any fancy collision or additional coverage.
The cheapest rate I could find was $4,000/year, which put an immediate kibosh on that idea. That may have been high, even for my neck of the woods as I'd never had car insurance before, even though I was in my mid thirties.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:28PM
I have a pretty decent driving record, 1 ticket and 2 claims in the past 7 years. Ticket was for failure to yield.
I pay 125 a month for full coverage. Minimum coverage would be approx 40 dollars a month.
You were getting dinged because you had never had insurance before. Don't believe me? Go get a quote and check the box for no previous insurance and then run it again with a previous insurance, it is a DRASTIC difference, not unlike credit.
You score is also based on years with a license, age, occupation, marital status, and where you live. Big cities cost more cause there are more claims. Live in the boonies and its cheaper.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:59PM
I have an excellent driving record (knock on wood), going back 2 decades. No (driving-related) tickets, no claims.
$1300 a year for full coverage, on a subcompact (i.e. not sporty, and not likely to be stolen).
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:07PM
Where you live has a huge impact on the rates you pay even before you factor in driver specifics. Just a move across town can result in rates changing as the insurance company factors in any changes in risk for theft.
I think if you live in places like New England or California you're going to get screwed on insurance. Sometimes all you can do is buy a cheaper car and not bother with collision on it.
That being said, that's one of the reasons that I ride a motorcycle, insurance is cheap and not even required. I pay about $100 a year for insurance. Next year I might upgrade the insurance policy to something nicer, but motorcycles don't do much damage typically and nobody is likely to want to steal a 250cc bike as long as I don't make it easy for them to steal.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:41AM
Since I own a car, I don't like to think about what it costs me, but here goes..
car: approx $ 1200 (20 year old Mazda 323. drives fantastic; just don't go over 90 km/h too often, and watch out for the speed bumps)
4 new winter tires $120 iirc.
gasoline: tank 25 l of euro-95 every 2 months = $ 30 => $ 180
yearly checkup: $ 35
things that have broken/rusted off the car without me noticing, and need to be repaired for it to be approved: $100
4 new summer tires $120 iirc.
Changing thetires twice a year I can do myself, but I'm too ignorant to do repairs or even serious maintenance.
we've got the car now for 5 years, so let's divide ( $1200 + $240 + saving for a replacement $2400 ) by 5 => $ 768
I make it $ 1083 / year. But then again I only drive when it's absolutely necessary or when we go shopping, once a week.
This guesstimate is lower if, as I'm fervently praying, my car will also pass its inspection this coming autumn.
It has the lowest (cheapest) environmental tax category w.r.t. CO2. Don't they sell Mazda 323 in the USA, or is that below the dignity of status-conscious drivers?
It doesn't have airbags because they weren't invented yet, that's the only disadvantage I can think of.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:58AM
oops, forgot about the car insurance. add $ 200 / year. But the bastards upped their price last year, so I'm switching to a cheaper insurance next year.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:00PM
According to USA today it costs 9000/year to own a car.
You're in a statistical trap. 1% of the population pays 10x to 100x that, and for everyone else its "a couple thou per year" not nearly 10K.
Its kinda like the urban area I work in... its very midwestern in that the city average housing is like $200K HOWEVER there is no housing in the city for anyone making between $25K/yr and maybe $1M/yr. There's only burned out crackhouses that sell for $10K and $6K/month luxury apartments and penthouses downtown and nothing in between. Have to go to the burbs for normal people housing (and the burbs combined outnumber city dwellers around 10 to 1)
So I buy a new $20K or so commuter car (adjusted for inflation) every ten years or so, and I buy quality so maintenance is like $0, but there are enough home equity loans turned into $80K pickup trucks and $80K SUVs not to mention the 1%er Ferrari collectors such that $10K/yr average probably is about right.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:13PM
Why not buy a $10K crackhouse on the edge of a nicer neighborhood? Gentrification doesn't happen by itself, buddy.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Thursday September 15 2016, @01:15AM
If it's anything like Detroit (and that's exactly what it sounds like to me), there is no "nicer neighborhood." It goes almost completely from shitty to super nice with no gradient in between. There are areas where you can find houses in good repair for cheap, with decent neighbors... but the next block over is boarded up traphouses and gangsters, all too ready to come to your block and take your shit.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:18PM
Really? My brother has lived in Ypsilanti, MI, for almost 20 years and for 20 years we heard him badmouth Detroit, but he had never actually been in Detroit. Last summer when we visited him, we decided to return to Brooklyn via Canada instead of northern Ohio. Along the way we stopped in Detroit for the day to check out the Eastern Market, the Detroit Institute of Arts, have lunch in Greek Town, and dinner in Mexicantown. The city was not at all the smoking crater everyone says it is. Eastern Market was as charming as anything you'd see at Union Square in Manhattan or Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. The art museum was world class, and I mean better than the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in NYC. Greek Town was better than Little Italy in NYC, and Mexicantown was a lovely neighborhood with great food.
It's not all roses, and the present is freighted with the disastrous policies of the past, but it's not irredeemable.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:55PM
Downtown is a different animal. I didn't even mean to badmouth Detroit... I would live there myself if I weren't living very cheaply and comfortably in the burbs. However, it IS dangerous, grimy, and a shithole. You would be downright stupid not to own a gun and keep it close while you sleep. You can let your kids play outside and the people are generally friendly and nice, but anyone with a family would not want to raise their kids there. It's not a warzone like some areas of Chicago, but it's nothing nice and I can completely understand why people with assets and attachments scorn it.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:10PM
It is pointless unless you leave the city on a regular basis to go someplace else sufficiently far away, such as if you like to drive 3 hours into the Catskills to camp/boat/bike/whatever, or visit your infirm mother in central Jersey. But if your journey from point A to point B is in the city, you'll probably get there faster, with less hassle than with a car (because you can't cheat and not also factor in time & expense to address the parking part of the journey).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:46AM
Without a car, you need to live in a big city.
No you don't. You need to live in a town that's big enough to contain your job, entertainment, and shops. I've never owned a car and never lived in a big city. I've always walked or cycled to work, or worked remotely.
We're now trying the ZipCar thing for a year. It was a good way of hiring a van when we moved house a couple of weeks ago, we'll see how much we use it after that.
The car-free life is pretty incompatible with having kids.
Around here, you see lots of tandems that are designed for one adult and one child and a lot of older children cycling to school unaccompanied. Driving anywhere near the city centre is either not allowed (taxis, busses, and bicycles only in the very centre) or about the same speed as walking and a lot slower than cycling at peak times.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:17PM
You'd need a place on the ground floor to store a bigger bike like that; doesn't work with 3- or 4-story walkup apartments. You'd also need a much more extensive network of protected bike lanes and a suitable driving culture, for kids to ride unsupervised. Some places like Amsterdam or Copenhagen have it, but no place in the United States is quite there yet. In fact the closest city I can think of in North America is Montreal.
It would be wonderful to get where those European cities are, because it would solve a great many problems at a stroke.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:50PM
You'd need a place on the ground floor to store a bigger bike like that; doesn't work with 3- or 4-story walkup apartments
Planning rules here (Cambridge) make it very difficult to build anything over 3 stories here, and the few places that do have bike storage. There are a couple of blocks of flats that are taller, but they have lifts to all floors and bike storage outside each flat. The newer ones have separate bike storage outside the building.
The problem is how the cities were designed. Most US cities were designed around cars. Most UK cities were designed around pedestrians or, occasionally, people on horseback. The city centre here really isn't designed for any vehicle bigger than a horse, so bikes fit nicely but cars struggle and busses have to go a very small number of ways in and out of the centre.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:07PM
I don't know that that's entirely true. The distance from Nassau County on Long Island to Midtown Manhattan is about 20 miles, as the crow flies. Driving that distance on the Long Island Expressway during rush hour will take 1.5-2 hours. You can bike that distance in less time, easily. Also, you'd save tons on insurance, gas, parking, general maintenance, and endless aggravation, and wouldn't need to take extra time or money to keep a gym membership besides.
In America people are conditioned by various self-interested parties to think the distances they travel daily are simply insurmountable without a car, but they're not. The constraint is psychological, not physical (in most cases--obviously the elderly and infirm need other measures).
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:36AM
I think your problem is you switched form Honda to VW.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:56AM
The real lesson to be learned is to not buy VW.
You could have gotten another Honda or something.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:12AM
Quality issues, yes - the makers are resting on their laurels. And then its a ton of money for nothing much (trade-in value). I may be in the minority on this, but here is what I think. Cars have become too complicated and jamming them to the gills with electronics is not the way to go. People want a phablet / phone / laptop - they buy that. They carry that everywhere. Why duplicate all this within the car? Millennials are tech-savvy. They won't buy a newer car as they understand better than their parents how hackable they are. Makers must provide affordable, non-boring styling, non-boring colours, fuel efficient motors. 4 USB 3.0 hubs to hook up to - great, but is the cage strong enough in a crash? No popsicle cars like the Fiat 500 or Smartcar. We don't need cars that are 450 HP, v8, top speed of 300 mph. There are speed limits in almost every part of the world, "civilized" or not. Cars need to be realistic, practical, fun to drive - not burdened with tons of unsecured electronic trash nobody asked for. As I said, my 2c, and I am maybe that 1 in 10,000,000 voice of reason.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:15AM
Yes... more googahs means more money when they fail.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:33AM
Fuck the VW, should have stayed with Honda.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:08AM
Early GenXer here.
I never owned a car and never wanted to own one. I made sure to live in a place where I didn't need one.
If I do go someplace where I need to drive, I rent one. No muss, no fuss, no wasted money on maintenance, car loans, car insurance or gas.
I'd be willing to bet that a lot of this is just that Millenials are settling down with families later, and staying in cities where there's good public transport.
Once they do start to have families, then they'll move to the 'burbs and buy lots of cars.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:21PM
I don't think that's the case. Times have changed. Suburbs aren't the utopia that people once imagined they were. The trends have been gone the other way in the last 20 years, with more people wanting to live in the city cores for the convenience and amenities they afford. It's quite possible to raise kids in the city; you don't spend your entire day chauffeuring them from school to sports to music lessons the way you must in the suburbs.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:40PM
Once they do start to have families, then they'll move to the 'burbs and buy lots of cars.
I don't think that's the case. Times have changed. Suburbs aren't the utopia that people once imagined they were. The trends have been gone the other way in the last 20 years, with more people wanting to live in the city cores for the convenience and amenities they afford. It's quite possible to raise kids in the city; you don't spend your entire day chauffeuring them from school to sports to music lessons the way you must in the suburbs.
I never thought suburbia was a utopia. In fact, I was always deeply disturbed by it given that I was born, grew up and continue to live in a very large city.
As an adult, watching my siblings' kids (interestingly, not only did they live in the suburbs, but on cul-de-sacs or dead end streets) be utterly dependent upon their parents to go anywhere or do anything until they were old enough to drive themselves, I was struck by how limiting that was.
The problem is that many cities are fairly crowded and real [zillow.com] estate [rent.com] is [apartments.com] often [rent.com] prohibitively [zillow.com] expensive [streeteasy.com] for young families.
This is not the case in many suburban areas. Which is why I think that (sadly) many young families will choose to move to those areas.
Growing up in a large city was a wonderful experience, and I think that it can still be so, assuming parents can afford it.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:12AM
sell like hotcakes. OK, the Galaxy Note 7 is having some probs.
Why is that? It's not because people need a new smart phone. They've owned one for 10 years.
It's a failure of marketing from Detroit. They've got to be figure out how to make their products cool. Hint: association with edgy young celebrities sells.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:32AM
Tay is edgy and young. So is Cortana. Get them both in the back seat and watch the sparks fly!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:04AM
> Why is that? It's not because people need a new smart phone. They've owned one for 10 years.
It's because you can do so much more with a smartphone.
Cars just take you places so you can work, get stuff or get laid.
Phones let you order everything you need online, including food and even groceries from amazon.
They're great for cybersex and millenials are having the least amount of sex [latimes.com] of any generation since we started counting.
And there's little downside with a phone - you aren't going to get in a wreck, nobody is going to sue you for running them over, you don't have to worry about parking.
An expensive phone is a status symbol, but even the most expensive phone is well under $1K while a penis-compensating car is easily $50K.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:13AM
and millenials are having the least amount of sex [latimes.com] of any generation since we started counting.
That's because they stare at their phones 24/7, lol. We used to look at girls: now, I see the girls walk by the guys who don't see the girls... they see Pokemon.
Hard to have sex when you don't even see people. (Now, at least... can't wait for the sex robots.......)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:42AM
Bah, you just need to have a pokemon costume, and then…
(Score: 1) by tftp on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:47AM
And there's little downside with a phone - you aren't going to get in a wreck, nobody is going to sue you for running them over, you don't have to worry about parking.
But why to stop there? If you stay at home you don't need clothes. You can save a lot! If you don't leave the bed 24/7 then you can also save on the square footage of the apartment and cut down on the food, as your energy loss will be minimal; perhaps, a hole in the wall, with the bed inside, will do fine! And, finally, if you don't live at all, savings are even greater!
People who don't use cars [note: != !(owning one)] don't see anything beyond a small patch of the city around them. They cannot carry stuff in the trunk; they cannot buy large things without having them delivered. For that reason they cannot own a house - if you have one, you carry stuff in and out quite frequently. Vacations are also limited to places that have transportation. You can rent a car, but if you don't drive regularly, it will be pretty dangerous, as you are an inexperienced driver. Perhaps you don't even have a license. Then renting is out of question; you have to pay someone to drive you, even if that is only an easy, pleasant fifteen minute drive.
I don't think we can live well without cars. Cars are needed simply due to geography of the country, unless you intentionally restrict yourself to a small patch of land. But in the nearest future we may not be required to drive these cars. I would be perfectly fine with that, as long as the cars are safe enough. Cars will become unnecessary when anyone can easily cast a personal portal to any other destination on the planet. Until then our physical bodies need to be mechanically carried around whenever you, residing at point A, want to be at point B. Today it is fashionable to tell yourself that you really don't want to be at B because A is good enough. If that fails, you look for someone who will carry you. This process depends on someone else. If that doesn't worry you at all, and you don't expect the need to rush across town at 3am because your elderly relative just had an accident... I guess then you are fine for now.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:27AM
Ugh. You are doing that thing where you assume people you disagree with are stupid.
Just because you don't have a car doesn't mean you aren't mobile.
Bicycles. Buses. Subways. Carpooling.
There are lots of ways for people to get around for their regular daily schedule and for the occasional exception there are ... rentals!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:28PM
That's not so at all. People who walk or bike or take the bus arguably see much, much more of the city around them than people who drive through it, because they can take the time to safely notice all the things around them. And buying heavy things? Sure you can buy heavy things, and the delivery people will even carry it up the stairs for you. What's not to love about that? And even if you have to pay a delivery fee, it's still going to cost far less than a car.
There are a lot of options for travelling and experiencing a lot of ground that don't need to involve a car, but Americans are conditioned to believe they must have a car to enjoy them. If you pause and consider for a moment, they would surface for even the most ardent car enthusiast.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:22PM
"Cars just take you places so you can work, get stuff or get laid."
Use the phone to order online, get laid in your apartment. Can people really have sex in a Smart Car?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Marand on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:14AM
OK, the Galaxy Note 7 is having some probs.
Really? Everything I've seen in the news lately seems to indicate it's a pretty hot item.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:31AM
While celebrity marketing does work quite well, the key here isn't pop culture marketing but simply a product they want. Every teenager wants a cellphone, owning a car comes with real responsibility and a lot more costs.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bogsnoticus on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:40AM
They can't walk along the footpath without staring at their phone and veering into everyone else's path. Give them a car and they will be driving on the footpath, still staring at their phones.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:15PM
There's an interesting analogy to car ownership for really old people.
In the midwest living in the city without a car means you're old and the state took away your drivers license or DUI or for whatever reason you can't handle driving anymore. Despite endless millennial boosterism, outside of the kool aide drinking camp its quite a hit to the ole social status to be unable to drive.
That leads to weird behavior where my UiL (Uncle in Law) is in semi-assisted living (there's like 500 levels of assistance, he's kinda at the low end) and it took years to convince him to sell his truck because it was quite the status symbol even though he wasn't really safe to drive it under all but ideal conditions.
If you take away the millennial retcon and turbocharged rationalization engine and kool aide drinking you basically end up with "no car = low social status"
On the other hand after 70 or so most old people get a strong "F you" to social signalling which leads to things like elderly dudes walking around naked in the gym locker room talking to each other for hours because they don't give a F what they look like. Likewise both my Mom and Grandma got rid of their cars around age 70. I have no idea if they walked around the health club lockerroom naked for hours. Don't want to know. But in my mom's case she has a luxury apartment in a city that has burb-like rural area so no crime, its a rural midwestern thing to have like 100 miles of corn fields then a city of like 30K all white people zero non-alcohol non-drug crime everything is a 15 minute walk away and then another 100 miles of corn fields. So she's in a quiet residential area (well, she can hear cars but her hearing probably isn't that good anymore) like two blocks from the main off interstate shopping center and maybe a quarter mile from her hospital and dr office and her dentist is a block away etc etc. Every good weather day she walks a mile round trip to the food store, which probably does good for her health.
Its interesting that with remote work and excellent internet connectivity I will probably move to a place like that "soon ish". There's no point living in a very expensive suburb once my kids graduate school and I'm not going to be one of those old guys refusing to fund the schools because my kids graduated.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:42AM
Auto makers have been too busy getting bailouts to lobby for the continued growth of our highways and even intermodal transportation that doesn't take 90 minutes one way.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:45AM
Another GenX here and I don't have a license, let alone a car despite the financial ability to buy a brand new mercedes. This is attributable to being a tree-hugger, a shut-in and super-cheap. Why hang out with people and waste hard earned cash when you can fuck around with bsd and a $20 rpi? Out of everyone I know my age, I'm doing best with finances and not having a car is a big reason for that. I'll be moving to a high-density city with amazing public transportation soon so any minor inconvenience I may have felt until now will be completely gone. The age of the car is coming to an end.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:52AM
Out of everyone I know my age, I'm doing best with finances and not having a car is a big reason for that.
This sentence alone needs moderating up. Cars are a huge money sink. Even owning one that you never drive, but pay insurance and tax on, is a big cost. Put that money into savings and you can afford the deposit on a house a few years earlier (and then you're probably paying less in mortgage interests than in rent).
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:51PM
Humorously the only bigger money pit than a car is a house.
I've certainly never broken even and I've been in this game awhile.
You can break responses down by people who use something like Quicken (I used to) and people who don't.
So people who don't, sell a house after 10 years and subtract the current sale price from the old sale price and say "suck it renters I made $40K you'll never make"
People who do, notice that the $40K gross profit came with $3500/yr in prop tax for a decade, that $7K new roof, the $4K for new HVAC, average of $500/month more in utilities than my bachelor pad utilities cost, a couple thousand per decade on disposable appliances, etc etc etc. With the money lost I could have rented my bachelor pad apartment.
With a side dish of people who don't understand the plural of anecdote is not "actionable information". Yeah yeah I heard it all before that if you were lucky enough to have bought in the right neighborhood in SV at the right time, etc etc but 99.9999% of the population didn't, doesn't, won't, and you can wish for another bubble all you want but reality has no obligation to blow another one for you. You should expect property to be flat as it historically has been, and anything more is a windfall. Actually historically prop prices tend to reflect wage inflation, which historically has been up, and now is permanently declining, implying property prices will long term decline going forward.
Although I'm basically sitting on my front lawn every night setting $20 bills on fire, its still worth it anyway as people self select who they want to live with, and I like where I live, other than the cost. I'm just under no illusion its a huge waste of money or an anti-investment.
Where I'm currently living I estimate I've spent $293K over 16 years, not counting interest, which is about $1500/month. Zillow thinks I can sell for $187K (not a bubble area obviously). So that's a net loss of $106K. If you refuse to use quicken then you might think I profited 187-124=$63K but I haven't. $106K is less than my annual household income so I don't care much and I like where I live and its less than $7K/yr so I'm not all that horrified. Zillow thinks I can rent for $1550/mo which is disturbingly close to what I've spent to buy. I was throwing away about $6000/yr in rent at the bachelor pad, now I'm throwing away about $7000/yr at the house, its not that much worse. The bachelor pad was more luxurious than my house, however.
The actual numbers for home loanership are much worse because most of my mortgage has been interest payment. So you add like $12K/yr donation to some NYC bank and the house looks a lot worse.
Buying a house is like buying a fancy video card for your computer. Hey, its fun, and if you can afford it, its not a problem. But LOL at people who try to market it as a get rich quick (or slow) scheme. Its just a money pit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by iwoloschin on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:51AM
Driving just isn't fun anymore, at least in New England. Other drivers are assholes, traffic sucks, parking is way too expensive, and it all just combines to make it not a fun time anymore. Instead, I choose to bike, because even though the same assholes are on the road, I gently cruise by them while enjoying myself, wondering why everyone else wants to be trapped in a car for hours each day.
Interestingly enough, I do own a car, and just ordered a new one to replace the old one. I just don't drive much during the week because it's easier to get around by bike/foot. We do use it a lot on the weekends though.
(Score: 1) by darkengine on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:01AM
I can definitely relate to this, but I didn't know it until I owned a car. I'd rather walk or take the bus into town because if I can find a parking spot (and that is a mighty big if around here), it'll cost more than the bus ride would have. On top of that, I get honked at for not turning right on a red, pedestrians run out into the street like they have a death wish, and I get swerved around by Audis when I try to accelerate my shitty car in the far right lane. To say nothing of the monthly cost of insurance. I don't know if driving was fun in the past, but it certainly doesn't seem like it in present-day west coast cities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:45PM
"I get honked at for not turning right on a red"
Rightfully so.
(Score: 1) by darkengine on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:06PM
I often don't feel like I can accelerate fast enough (again I will defer blame my shitty car) to get in lane when there is oncoming traffic. Of course, I will always go right on a red on a dead street, but I don't have the horsepower to beat the unending torrent of vehicles that I have to merge into without getting T-boned or rear ended. I'd rather get honked at than smooshed most days of the week.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:20AM
I can sympathise. When I was learning to drive I realised I absolutely hated driving, and the costs associated with car ownership don't do anything to make it more fun. At the same time, people kept telling me how awesome driving was, and I just didn't see it.
I always figured I'm just an outlier here, but I didn't (and still don't) give a damn about driving. To me it's just paying extra for the privilege of dealing with more stress.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:36PM
Driving is more fun once you're west of mid-South Dakota, and outside Puget Sound/Bay Area/LA-San Diego corridor. Epic scenery and few cars. Every other part of the country is suckage, because of traffic or deadly tedious countryside.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:13PM
You do own a car -- and you just "ordered a new one to replace the old one"?
I must be old. That is something I would do with, say, a light bulb. Or a coffee maker.
But a car? I suppose that option to just order a new one has been around for a while, but my purchase of a car usually cannot be summed up in the manner you have stated.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ShadowSystems on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:54AM
My son turned 25 & is attending college to become a teacher. He did a month's worth of in depth research with AAA, the NTSB, & various insurance companies to determine a realistic amount he would need each month to pay for the car itself, the gas to run it, the insurance to cover it, the maintenence to keep it running (just general stuff, not including any major repairs), & all the other expenses involved in owning a car. It turned out that while having a car may be nice, it can't hold a candle to the $40 monthly unlimited Student Bus Pass & the excersize he gets by walking where the bus doesn't go.
It comes as no surprise others of his generation are skipping getting a car, you would need a high paying job to cover rent, groceries, health care, cell phone, student loans, school supplies, PLUS all the money needed for the car.
And he's not sure he wants to get one after he becomes a teacher either. As a teacher he isn't in it for the money, and by NOT owning a car that means he can stretch his meager earnings even further. This is especially pertenent when he may have to go out of pocket to buy classroom supplies for the kids. The money a car would gobble up would go a LONG way towards easing the burden of buying stuff the districts should be able to buy instead.
It boils down to if owning a car is worth the cost of owning a car, & the answer is pretty much No.
=-\
(Score: 3, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:02AM
insurance is a ripoff. They will raise the rates ,every year unless you change.
My dad told me about this, so I have been aware.
I will say that most of the points raised so far are probably right - the ability to hail transport from a phone, has eluded the taxi cabs of just ten years ago!
Add in the ability to get groceries etc...then you finally realise the freedom of a car, becomes the need to work, and get away. Once those have been contracted out...well who needs a car? I am really hoping my next car is autonomous!!
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:31PM
Interesting...they decrease my rates every year automatically. I'm paying $50/month less now than I was when I switched to this provider (MetLife, due to an employer discount) back in 2012.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @03:44PM
Try getting quotes and I think you'd be surprised. It is a well-known phenomena in the industry. Here is an example: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/aug/16/keep-switching-providers-loyalty-never-pays [theguardian.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:18AM
I am in my mid 40s. My first car I got when I was 23. It was a graduation gift. It lasted a whole 6 months before it blew a lifter rod through the sidewall of the engine. My second car lasted until someone smashed the backend out. The next one lasted 15 years. My current one I hope to get another 15 from.
I watched many of my fellow 'genxrs' blow shitloads of money into cars they can not afford. Then trash them. I saw many 5000 dollar stereos in 500 dollar cars.
Another thing that people ignore is 'cash for clunkers'. Those were the cars millennials would have been buying and then laddering their way into better cars. Those cars do not exist. Our gov basically ruined an entire fleet of cars. When everyone was going gaga over the program I was telling them GM and Ford just shot themselves in the foot getting that program going. In basic economic terms it means more scarcity driving up the value of the remaining cars.
I remember growing up you bought a shit box for your first few cars. That is what all you could afford. It is was what all of my friends bought. Some would save up a bit and get a not so shitty car but obviously old. Sure the AC was a bit wonky and smelled terrible. Oh and dont roll down the back window it does not come back up. Ignore the hole in the trunk.
Now if you can get used to it. Walking, bike, and the bus are not terrible. The cost ratio is much better. But the freedom of movement is lower. I did it for many years. Where I currently live does not afford that sort of freedom. So I own a car. It was 20-30 mins to any point in town where I grew up. As it was well laid out and had a decent public transportation and paths. Where I currently live it is 2-3 hours to any point in town (which should be less). But there is shit for public transportation and very few paths that go anywhere needed.
Also I currently own one car for my wife and I. Now instead of two shitty cars we have one very nice car that we share.
New cars are a terrible investment. The rare ones worth a pretty penny are never the one you own. Used cars typically come with a random raft of issues that are crazy expensive to fix unless you can do it yourself or 'know a guy'. Sometimes to fix a computer module can be more than the car is worth and you have to tear apart half the dash to get at it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:34PM
This poster and the GP have it right, there are several factors at play:
1 - There is a shortage of cheap used cars that don't suck. Cars are more expensive now. I got my first car in 2002 and had many $5K cars to choose from. In 2012, there were virtually none. The cheapest I could get away with was $8K, which significantly outpaced inflation and the market.
2 - Manufacturers have mostly killed the "basic model". My current car (which is cheap) has windows that roll up manually, which is shocking to passengers. "Under $15K" for a _new_ car is considered "cheap" nowadays (http://www.autotrader.com/best-cars/the-7-cheapest-new-cars-in-the-united-states-224878).
3 - Cars are expensive. Do a rough estimate. $100/month for maintenance/repair, $100/month for insurance, $50/month in gas/tolls (13 miles one-way commute), and $8K up front (the equivalent of $30/month) means $280/month to "own a crappy car".
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:45AM
"excersize"
I am somebody who also struggles to spell this, of all words, for some reason.
It is spelled "exercise."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by slinches on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:03AM
The reason that the younger crowd aren't buying new cars is because they are priced out of the market. Even the cheapest econobox is $12,000 or more and nearly $20,000 to own over five years. That can buy you quite a few Uber rides.
The only way I see the trend changing is if something like the Elio can get into production. Simple, reliable transportation is almost completely unattainable for those with low or even moderate means. If a car can sell for under $8000 and get 2-3x the mileage of the average new car, then there's a market. Until then, only those with the disposable income to plunk down $20k plus on a car will be able to afford the freedom of owning their own transport.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:29AM
If you live in a city (most people) and don't actually need the car every day (most people who don't already own cars) then car ownership is almost certainly a waste of money. Beyond the initial purchase price there are ongoing costs associated with the vehicle.
Then you just rent/borrow/carpool on the occasional days you need it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:33AM
The reason that the younger crowd aren't buying new cars is because they are priced out of the market. Even the cheapest econobox is $12,000 or more and nearly $20,000 to own over five years. That can buy you quite a few Uber rides.
This may be a reason for not owning a NEW car. But what about owning a CAR in general, e.g., a used car?
That's an interesting shift too. Talk to the baby boomers about their first cars -- unless they were a "rich kid," they didn't have new cars. They got cheap stuff that was a decade old if they were lucky. My parents bought their first new cars when they were in their 40s.
Young people have ALWAYS been somewhat "priced out" of new cars. There was a trend beginning in the 1980s through the early 2000s when for some bizarre reason young people were convinced to take on huge amounts of car debt as a matter of course to own a new car, but that was an aberration. Young people today are less likely to fall into that particular debt trap -- probably because of a combination of student loan payments and cell phones, which collectively probably add up to the car payment most people used to make. The interesting thing is that they are refusing to go back to their parents' practice of buying used older, but still reliable, cars.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:56AM
The 'cheapo' car does not exist right now. Unless you are very lucky. My friend found a 1998 f150 for 900 bucks. It needed ~1500 bucks worth of work (4k if he had taken it to different car shops). However, now he has a truck worth ~2500. *lucky*. Sometimes you find the 'grandma' car. The car where some old lady bought it 2 months before her son died and then parked it in the garage. Basically new but out of date. Those are rare and usually snapped up by dealers.
Cash for clunkers destroyed the crap box market. They just dont exist. Right now the best you can do for an 'ok' car is in the 2-4k range. Usually outside of the range of people starting out. The 500-1500 market is basically empty. It will probably be 5-10 years before that straightens itself back out.
You nailed it spot on how most people did cars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:26AM
What? Plenty of old cars for $500-1000 here. If you're mechanically inclined you can choose one that isn't on its last legs and get a good deal, fix it up for a few hundred. If you're not mechanically inclined you're gonna get screwed by everyone. This is how cars have always worked.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:25AM
New cars are made out of plastic, which starts getting brittle after about 7 years.
The appeal of a clunker drops when you just know the whole thing is falling apart.
My current apartment building also has one parking space of every two apartments.
Recently, the price of downtown parking spaces dropped about 30%: now only $200/mo instead of $300/mo.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:41AM
Have you priced out the used car market recently? To get a decent used car with low miles will cost at least $6000-8000 from a dealer that will offer a short warranty or about a thousand less from a private seller as-is. And for that price it will be a later model vehicle that gets mediocre mileage.
We need something to be available that will cut that cost in half. I don't see anything on the used market now that fits the bill, so it will need to be a new vehicle. And once this new low cost vehicle establishes its own used market, the threshold will be dropped even lower.
Right now, the choices are to buy an expensive car and then live far out from the city center to maintain a decent standard of living or eschew the costs of a vehicle and instead pay the exorbitant rent/real estate prices to live in a city, close to public transport and entertainment. Those are both expensive. The quality of life for anyone who currently can't afford either of those would be greatly improved with access to much more affordable personal transportation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:48PM
How about something new, with a warranty, that gets outstanding mileage?
https://www.eliomotors.com/ [eliomotors.com]
I do not work for nor have a financial interest in the company, I just think it's a good idea.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:33PM
I gave up when that site had a "loading" screen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:50AM
The mere fact Millennials consider priced out of the market the inability to purchase one of the most expensive products new tells you more about their head space than anything market wise.
Not to mention the means to maximize a purchase like an Elio would be to do most of the maintenance yourself, but that requires tools (let me guess, you're priced out of the market for a decent socket set as well), knowledge (ditto a copy of the pertinent Chiltons), and a place to work (guess you really can't do repairs without a garage with a full lift either. Let me see that houses for sale listing again).
We get it. Uphill. Both ways. And had to share a single grain of rice between your roommates.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:02AM
$20 000 for a new car. you can buy a small crappy house for that.
I'm not joking:
hemnet.se [hemnet.se]
(Score: 3, Touché) by tangomargarine on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:19PM
How is linking to a Swedish housing site relevant in this discussion about the U.S. car market?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:03AM
Low Income
High Taxes
Debt
Unavailability of work
Unavailability of time for another work
Traffic
No interest to travel
No interest to go places
Internet
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:11AM
With a smartphone and data in the cloud, you have less paperwork and no laptop to cart around, and you can hail an on-demand ride from wherever you want. Plus on public transit you can read, listen to music, create content, chat with friends, answer email, and play games -- it's no longer lost time*. I suspect that time may even be too valuable for them to commit their money, time, and attention to driving around and maintaining personal transportation.
I think the automakers would benefit from setting aside their cars, bank accounts and families for a month, then try to live their lives and see what their priorities and resources naturally drift towards.
* Oh, and also make phone calls. Can't believe I forgot about that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:19PM
so wait -- a laptop is hard to port around? It is called a "laptop" precisely because of that portability and its ease of use -- it is small enough to fit on one's lap. The prior type was portable, but called a 'luggable' and not a 'laptop'.
Perhaps if people believe laptops are too difficult to port around, they are buying gaming laptops or that study that demonstrated millenial men are physically weaker than the past three measured generations... has some credence to it.
I think automakers would benefit from lowering the prices and cutting out a lot of the technology shit people desire but can't affford. Making expensive techno cars and marketing them towards the 'internet natives' only frustrates people because the intended audience is unlikely to be able to afford all that crap in what should be basic transportation.
But I am crazy like that. I even would put the laptop in a bag in the foot well behind the drivers seat--or even in the trunk.
*lost time used to be compensated for via reading a book or actually creating content via paper and pencil or even pen.
I have to wonder how people under 35 think life was like without phones and internet. Some idiots like me only dreamed that shit up without having it to create content on.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:43PM
Interesting idea, and it just might appeal to the generation which made the fixed-gear bicycle a big thing again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:25AM
Sorry to pile on, but as far back as I have been a driver (27 years), VWs have been junk that quickly disintegrates.
My college roommate's Golf would have pieces just break off: door handles, window cranks, etc. It didn't faze him because he knew exactly where to buy a replacement in town due to his being such a frequent parts customer. And electrical problems... Jesus, could VW -ever- make an electrical system that wouldn't shit the bed??
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:40AM
Jesus, could VW -ever- make an electrical system that wouldn't shit the bed??
My first auto was a Golf. Little more durable than that, but I got handy working on cars with all the stuff that broke.
Anyhoo, I'd have this intermittent problem of the horn going off at random intervals (once behind a biker gang... interesting times). Scoured for any possible fixes, and finally had to break down and bring it to a dealer for repairs (fuckers charged as much as Benz service).
They told me my keychain was too heavy.
Granted, I did have my house key, my locker key, and a skeleton key on the ring as well as the vehicle key, but I would have thought "German Engineering" could have dealt with a few extra ounces on the ignition.
And the dome light only worked when my friend trip acid. True story.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edinlinux on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:38AM
Modern cars all look the same... 'bullet' shaped bubbles. You cannot tell anything from anything else except by looking at the nameplace. A Toyota looks the same as a Ford looks the same as a Mercedes...etc. And they all look ugly.
Even just 10 years ago, young people were driving used cars from the 70s, 80s and 90s. They were unique, were pleasing to the eye, and part of self 'image' in many cases. Pontiac GTOs, Caprices and LTDs... Firebirds and Trans-AMs, Cuda's and Chargers... now those were real automobiles..
Today...nope, they are all the same 'econo-boxes'. Look at a 'Lincoln' or a "Cadillac' today...tiny, and looks the same as a little Toyota. Cars are boring... and expensive.. and driving is no fun anymore... and if you have a drink, you cannot drive (not saying this is bad, but it changes the dynamic of owning a car for young people).
If we can get solar powered electrics, maybe the cool cars will come back where styling takes a precedence to econo-boxing..
And the big one... cars used to be big enough to lay your GF on the bench (either in front or in back) and have a great time since there was no other private place to go... now the cars are way to small to do that (and most of the women have gotten way bigger too). So cars are no longer fun...they are only good for driving, and hardly comfortable at that either... (riding an econobox today is no comparison to an LTD or Buick from the 70s, 80s..)
Better to spend the money and just live downtown where you can walk or bike...that's what I did..
(Score: 2, Interesting) by toddestan on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:13AM
I agree, if the auto manufacturers started making appealing vehicles again it would go a long way. Everything now is just an over-styled ugly mess that still manages to look just like everyone else's over-styled ugly mess. The interiors are tacky and come packed full of gee-whiz technology that I don't want because it's expensive (well, overpriced), doesn't work any better than a smartphone, and will be hopelessly outdated in a few years. Plus, the overall designs are just so impractical. New cars are huge compared to their predecessors, yet thanks to swoopy styling, oversized center consoles, and "cockpit seating" the cars manage to be cramped and uncomfortable. Thick pillars, small windows, and high beltlines hinder visibility and combined with the dark interiors make the cars feel claustrophobic.
I'm just out of their target group. I could have bought my first new car by now, but one of the reasons I'm still driving the used car I bought in 2004 is that there's very little on the new car lots that I find appealing.
If they want to attract young people, it would also help if new cars could be more personalized. Right now you pick out your model, there's maybe 2-3 option packages, and then your color. By the way, I hope you like either white, black, beige, silver, or grey because that's all it comes in. A few more color options would go a long way, especially on the interior where your two choices seem to be either beige or black. The option packages are also very extremely annoying, because to get one feature you want, you have to buy several of them you don't want, raising the price by thousands and often including features you would rather not have. It used to be that you could go to the dealer and order exactly the car you wanted, the body style you wanted, the engine you wanted under the hood, in the colors you wanted, with exactly the options you wanted. You could drive it around for years and not ever see one exactly like yours. That was one of the big appeals of a new car over a used car. If you can't do that anymore, then why not buy the used car?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:22AM
Most cars of most eras are kinda crappy looking with a few exceptions. 20 years later all you see from that era is the 'cool' stuff. Or someone who took a crappy car and put some work into it. Even something boring looking from then will look unique today. Because most cars are following the trends of the day.
For example. Take a 1974 chevy nova. In its day it was a cheap 'mom car'. These days it is considered something kinda cool. I still wouldnt buy one. They look like a crap 70s car. Take for example a 70s Cadillac coupe deville or or Lincoln Continental. They were boats of a car that didnt look wildly different than each other and had shit suspension and crap gas millage (7-10 was considered high). Also the seats from the 70s were little more than squishy benches that would kill you if you got in an accident. Some people 'like it' but I would take a modern car over an older one in a heart beat. Most are better designed and worth buying.
It is the same thing with video games. People go on and on about the old NES. There is *maybe* 20-30 of those games that are truly worth playing. The other 1200 or so? Not so much.
they are all the same 'econo-boxes'
Been hearing that same thing since 1980. The market moved to a smaller car because 7MPG, poor exhaust, suspension that will roll the car over, is kinda bad. Or you can go back to the 60s where everyone and their brother was running around in a vw bug.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:26PM
oh please. go back 10 years and you will say the same thing. go back 10 more and you will say the same thing. hey everyone these cutless supremes look just like monte carlos!
Its called fashion. You also may have noticed that a chrysler cirrus, for example, is the same car as a dodge stratus, which is the same car as a plymoth breeze.
Different price ranges for different audiences; all ultimately the same auto maker with different branding. Its the same car with different colors and flavors.
There are differences between major brands, but they are all out to sell what people want, not make things so different people don't want them. It is the fashions that change the most, and sometimes, automakers just like other major companies, need to get with the times.
Back to your design concerns, if you go back to the 80s, there were few bullet shaped bubbles. back the the future had no bubbles either because it wasn't really well appreciated yet that air friction smooths the sharp edges they called aerodynamic. Their future cars still look like what people depict as future cars, but there is more rounding now. Now it is more widely known that soft and round won't dull because it already is.
Bullets first came into style in the 50s but those cars looked comical, so that concept was dropped even though the mpg was good. Now that they try to style it for the fuel economy, people complain they all look the same i guess. The shape of the car indeed affects mileage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @12:27PM
"If we can get solar powered electrics, maybe the cool cars will come back where styling takes a precedence to econo-boxing.."
IMO, that is a stupid comment. Solar powered vehicle design will put drag coefficient ahead of *everything*.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by dw861 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:21AM
In last week's "Financial Times" there was an article that said the exact opposite. Or, at least, it agrees on many points but came to the exact opposite conclusion.
"Millennials' ambitions point to open road ahead for US new car sales." Continuing, it stated that "Vehicle sharing looks set to trim only 0.3% from sector as youngsters aim for ownership."
Can't link to the article for you since it is behind their paywall (I pay for the physical newspaper at my local news stand). Is it possibly this one?
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/6dc688d2-6fc3-11e6-a0c9-1365ce54b926,Authorised=false.html?siteedition=intl&_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F6dc688d2-6fc3-11e6-a0c9-1365ce54b926.html%3Fsiteedition%3Dintl&_i_referer=&classification=conditional_standard&iab=barrier-app [ft.com]
Perhaps the divergent opinion expressed in the piece is because financial types want increasing car sales? This said, the article quotes many stock analysts etc, and they have a lot riding on being right, and providing accurate analysis for other investors.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:18AM
The stock market "analysts" (ie, bullshit-artists) need only to be *convincing* over the period it takes to get someone to buy whatever shares they are currently trying to boost/short/fuck.
A *few* investors might make some money; otherwise, "oops, there went your money"
Another article I saw said millenials had the greatest level of disoposable income of any group since just after WW2.
Mainly, I suspect, because more "young" (under 30) people are living at home, so drive one of their parents' cars.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:03AM
Sure, people are poorer. But, it's not the same used cars market as well: Dial the clock 30 years back, and a poor 20 something had access to some decent mid/late 70s options with plenty of affordable auto-parts and a good chance for self-maintenance or at least access to cheap garages. Cars were just startling to switch from manual to auto so there were a lot of good manual models that old people didn't want and young people didn't mind.
Nowadays, planned obsolescence and decades of cheating on exhaust tests have destroyed the used cars market. Anything too old can't pass the tests since it's not calibrated with the new cheats. And everything from the dash covers to the gear box is breaking apart on the 10yr/100k miles point to the day. AND the parts costs too much. A-N-D the billing hours are too expensive since you need a lot of special gear to service all those on board electronics...
So, given that a car's value reflects it's entire life cycle, if the industry cut that cleanly in half, why should the increasingly destitute youth even consider them a viable option?
compiling...
(Score: 1) by Sarasani on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:57AM
Anything too old can't pass the tests since it's not calibrated with the new cheats.
I love this bit (and good post in general).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:25PM
Do not look at currently old cars and think 'they dont make em like that anymore'. 99.9% of the cars of that era are have been recycled, trashed, or are little cubes sitting in some junk yard. What is left is the ones where people took care of them or restored them.
People do not value cars in a rational manner either. I remember as a kid this kid rocks up in something from the 50s. It was a 500 dollar car at best. He then declared to us that him and his father had put 20k into it and it is now worth 50k. He was not happen when I showed him the current values of 5k for a pristine mint car. His was a bondo job with custom interior. It looked nice but not worth 50k.
My point? Most cars start shedding things at about the 10 year mark. It has been that way for a long time. Trust me, I spent many weekends in junk yards looking for parts whatever car my dad had bought. It was the only place to get the parts. They didnt make them anymore. This is not a 'new' thing.
you need a lot of special gear to service all those on board electronics
Have you actually watched what most do? They plug it into the can bus. Something tosses an error? Replace it. Thats it. It used to be 'listen and kinda guess what is going on'. Now it is pretty much let the computer decide what is wrong. This requires no specialized training. The program tells you pretty much what to do. If it does something odd you call a number and they get back to you in a few hours with steps to try. The billing hours though yeah very high.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Friday September 16 2016, @12:15AM
Most cars start shedding things at about the 10 year mark.
We agree on the effect. We disagree on the cause:
1. Cars naturally get warn down after 10 years.
2. Companies engineer cars to a 10 years mark.
Everything from the thickness of the bodywork to the cheap plastic used for the dash boards is purposefully chosen not to last. You can still find 70s era cars with dash boards that didn't fall apart. And not luxury models.
Something tosses an error? Replace it.
With a free part from the dealer? No? Cause we could just tighten a screw 20 years ago.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by snufu on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:15AM
You go kids. Do it your way and tell the man to fuck off.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:42AM
I'm not in the least interested in buying a new, gasoline powered car. I'm waiting for battery tech to improve more, and perhaps a price drop, then I may bite.
But the idea of not owning any car at all has some appeal. Simply not practical where I live now, would have to move. I am keenly aware that cars are targets for revenue hungry local governments just looking for excuses to slap drivers with parking tickets, parking fees, red light camera tickets, speeding tickets, towing fees, impound fees, license fees, tolls, fines for unpaid tolls, etc.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:53PM
I'm not in the least interested in buying a new, gasoline powered car. I'm waiting for battery tech to improve more, and perhaps a price drop, then I may bite.
I don't even need that. The original Nissan Leaf range of eighty-something miles is actually plenty for my typical driving needs - even back when I had a job that was much further away. (35 miles round trip, but that would have left me with another 45+ miles for running errands. And I live in a house, not an apartment, so daily overnight charging isn't an issue.) But I've already got one paid-for vehicle for me and a loan on a second car for my wife, so I've got no need or desire to change vehicles at the moment.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 1) by letssee on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:50AM
Everybody start working from home *please*. If we don't stop commuting very soon we will be toasted.
(Score: 1) by fraxinus-tree on Wednesday September 14 2016, @11:55AM
First and most: young people do not need cars to socialize anymore. But mobile devices, bikes and buses are only part of the change. The car and driver landscape changed even more: in my days, one could easily "inherit" a car from an older family member who got a new one. And run it. Or buy used, but working one and run it without much money thrown. Not anymore: new cars become unmaintainable crap that is cheaper to be replaced much faster than the kids grow. Now you have to get a new car in order to learn to drive. Given that almost everyone kills his first car in 12 months no matter how he tries, becoming a driver gets expensive.
Sorry, car makers. You killed the cheap used car market. Now, grow your own drivers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:46PM
..."where is this **** happening?" I grew up and still live in the Chicago suburbs, am a Millenial, and everyone my age range who lives and works in this area has a car. In those who live in the city mostly have cars. It's been very rare for me to meet anyone without one and they pretty well confine themselves to downtown Chicago all of the time as they are very dependent on public transport. Even when I attended university in the city less than a decade ago the majority of the students commuted in from the suburbs and the parking lots were always full of cars.
Are these people once again just looking at the Bay Area and assuming that represents the entire generation somehow?
I'm reminded of all the stories on how "Millenials shun home ownership" that were based entirely on rental statistics, then someone actually did a poll and found that the majority do want to be homeowners but can't afford it yet or lack the credit history to qualify for a mortgage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:37PM
As a Millennial I didn't own a car for a long time, and the reason for it was mostly financial. Luckily the public transport was good everywhere I lived. Eventually as I saw impending need for a car in order to travel out to the burbs for work, I got one. I don't really feel bad about the years not having had a car, as I feel it has spoiled me in short order. I no longer tolerate hot days, since I can travel in my AC car and don't stand at bus stops for 30 minutes at a time in muggy weather. I no longer consider places that are within one mile "close," and I opt to drive. And yes I definitely packed on few pounds.
But the bottom line is all these so called trends are people just dealing with their personal situation. When shit gets so bad that kids out of school won't be able to afford food, the headline will be "The slimmest generation yet shuns food!."
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:46PM
If you need to drive to commute into Chicago to work, you're doing it wrong. Chicago has a perfectly fine regional light rail and metro area transit system [rtachicago.com]. Even the CTA proper is ridiculously extensive, as you can live in Skokie and take it, for goodness' sake. Orland Park? Schaumburg? You're set. Owning a car in Chicagoland is a choice, not a necessity. When I was in grad school I sold my car and bought a really good Cannondale bike and saved vast amounts of time and money.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:06PM
I worked with a *large* group of people from Chicago. Almost all of them owned cars. None of them drove it to work and took the train. The only ones who did not were the ones who lived downtown.
Why? To get the cert to be in the city was crazy expensive and the line was huge to get one. So they didnt. They instead drive to one of the stations which have large parking decks nearby then took the bus/train for the rest.
I asked them why they didnt do the same thing you said. I quote "Its fucking cold here dude and biking 10 blocks sucks ass"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Sarasani on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:35PM
Consider the man on horseback, and I have been a man on horseback for most of my life. Well, mostly he is a good man, but there is a change in him as soon as he mounts. Every man on horseback is an arrogant man, however gentle he may be on foot. The man in the automobile is one thousand times as dangerous. I tell you, it will engender absolute selfishness in mankind if the driving of automobiles becomes common. It will breed violence on a scale never seen before. It will mark the end of the family as we know it, the three or four generations living happily in one home. It will destroy the sense of neighborhood and the true sense of Nation. It will create giantized cankers of cities, false opulence of the suburbs, ruinized countryside, and unhealthy conglomerations of specialized farming and manufacturing. It will make every man a tyrant.
--R.A. Lafferty
Interesting observation, made by a man at the dawn of the car age (end of the 19th century).
(Score: 2) by WillR on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:35PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:44PM
First the obvious: Cars are expensive, and we (the Eternally Evil Millenials™) are poor, in part thanks to school loans for useless degrees, saturated special-snowflake-job-markets creating job shortages for our useless degrees, expensive craft beers, Bonnaroo visits...
This system of "A car (or two) for every house, a house for every nuclear family" was a post-hoc development of the post-war era from a time when the US had plenty. It was only through things like the GI Bill that suburbia was built, as we well know. These are entirely 20th Century conventions and did not exist beforehand. How many generations lived in the same house in the 1800s, 1700s, all the way back to when we decided caves weren't cutting it and put a roof on top of some sticks? Family units were multigenerational and everyone pitched in. Father and mother had their duties each, and the grandparents would look after the kids who were too young to work the fields or other house chores (yes, a very idyllic and sexist painting of the past, isn't it?). Now we offload our elderly to death-waiting-rooms, put both parents in the workplace, away from home (assuming they have both if they're not divorced-- which multiplies the house and car number by a factor), and put a television or a phone in front of a kid's eyes so they won't even notice they have a family (wait, what's mommy's name again, she's working 3 jobs and I haven't seen dad in months due to the custody battle). The human element of home life is practically nonexistent here. Now, at age 27, home is just the place where, you know, I keep my shit and get drunk when I'm depressed about being poor. Also I play Halo 5 there sometimes. You want me to buy a car, now that your ad-hoc sales pitch of a Perfect Suburbia broke in half?
Of course I'm not going to buy a car if I don't need it or can afford it. "You wanna give me one for free?" is the Millenials' National Anthem, so get used to hearing it. After all, our parents gave us a car for free.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:22PM
maybe humans are explorers by nature?
before internet and mobile phones, the way to explore
your surroundings (and socializing) was on f00t, (horse?), then faster with a bike
and finally, with well done marketing, only "the boss" in a car (watch some high-school comedies from 80s?).
then telecommunications (for the masses) happened.
for a short time, basement dwellers on (foot or bike) overtook the big
american-muscle wielding jock, zipping around the whole globe in a secret
universe at light speed (that must have been a ego boost beyond
380 hp v6 at the time).
then it went mainstream (56k dial-up, AOL). online chat must have displaced
quiet a number of gallons of fuel sold word-wide; meeting people without physical or eye contact.
then the phone became cordless; more convenient then keyboards and bridging the die-hard motorist
into the new age: a car AND comms! phrases like "where are you bitch!?" and "how much do you need?" must have been
rather common during does days...
and in the lastest step the mobile phone became internet aware, kicking the original explorers from the basement to the curb ^_^
a generation later, the auto mobile was never need to explore, acquire information and socialize.
and here we are?
me? i luv my GPS non-simmed tablet (with free-maps!) and 1.5l honda hatch-back.
if money should run out, you can find me near a library in walking distance...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:57PM
"let the state take care of you, let us drive you around ( public transportation )"
we have lost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @05:52PM
I think the key sentence in the summary is, "It's no secret the percentage of new vehicles sold to 18- to 34-year-olds has significantly dropped over the past few years." The key word in that sentence: new.
If my choices were: Own one new(ish) care between myself and my wife and carpool around, or our existing 2 cars of a decade plus age, one of them pretty decent and the other a beater... well, she has to be at her workplace at 7 AM, and I have to be at mine at 8:30. She is done with her workday by 3:15. Mine ends at 5:00.
I'm a GenXer, but my anecdote is I'll take two old but OK running cars over one new Prius for both of us any day of the week. And when one of our cars dies.... it'll be a used car that replaces it.
Besides... if we had the money for gas to spend on trips and weren't basically homebodies.... we wouldn't have money to spend at our destinations.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cykros on Friday September 16 2016, @06:00AM
Auto manufacturers today are scratching their heads, trying to figure out why the millennial generation has little-to-no interest in owning a car.
It's no secret the percentage of new vehicles sold to 18- to 34-year-olds has significantly dropped over the past few years.
Uh, these are two very different things, and this summary is really not very good at differentiating between which statistics it is talking about.
In the meantime, could it just be that cars are surviving a LOT longer than the old death sentence of 100,000 miles, and more millenials are buying used cars than people their age did 10-15 years ago? It wouldn't surprise me that there is some drop off in car ownership overall (after all, the cities are seeing rent spikes because millenials are flocking to them faster than they can build housing to accomodate them, and driving in some cities isn't much faster than taking public transit in the first place), but things may not be quite as drastic as these chaotically selected statistics seem to be portraying them. As a millenial, I'll certainly point out that none of my peers who I happen to know bought NEW cars, despite many (though certainly not most, here in the Greater Boston area) certainly owning them. It's less about not being able to afford them (though with rent here, it wouldn't be a simple matter), and more simply that cars lose more value in that first year or two after their initial purchase than they do in the 5 following that point. Why bother buying this year's car for $25,000 when the 2014 costs $11,000?