How Car Companies Are Trying to Win Back Millennials

How Car Companies Are Trying to Win Back Millennials(citylab.com)

10 points by jgunaratne 11 years ago | 7 comments

fotbr 11 years ago |

It would seem they're neglecting the elephant in the room:

The average millennial doesn't have much disposable income.

Sure, it's not all of them. But many of them are struggling financially, and a new car, no matter how "cool", "hip", or whatever the current terms is, just isn't something they can afford. So they drive old cars, and drive them less. Or they live places they don't need cars.

You can stick $10k worth of the latest and greatest gadgets into the new car, and all it will do, at best, is end up as their phone background (the equivalent of my generation's poster on the wall), and move that car $10k+ farther away from what they can afford.

akurilin 11 years ago | |

Completely concur. Dumping my car and moving to downtown SF actually saves me a ton of time and money. Lyft / Instacart / Shyp take care of everything I need and I always have Zipcar if I need it. I can go out on the weekend and not have to deal with parking or potentially unsafe driving.

I can see this not working as well in a place like LA due to sheer size, but it's perfect in SF.

throwaway234 11 years ago | | |

As a millennial in SoCal, I think it's safe to say we need cars. But we don't buy new cars because they have iPhone docks, we buy used cars because we can afford them.

Not sure how this article could not mention student loans once. We are disenchanted by the idea of more monthly payments and debt. This issue seems much more economic than a blanket 'cars aren't cool anymore' attitude.

serge2k 11 years ago | |

I think there is one person on my team of 10 who has a car. These people all have the income to get one.

The issue for me is that I don't need one. I've considered it, but I can get most stuff in the city by walking/bus/zipcar/uber. Larger stuff I just buy online anyway.

Considering I pay high enough rent without the cost of a parking spot, insurance, and probably a car payment, it doesn't make sense financially. Parking is also a pain.

Now i could potentially break even/better by moving out of the city but then I just spend 30 minutes or more each way getting to work. I have to put up with traffic. I'm not in the city when it comes to fun stuff in the city.

I'd buy a car if I was going to start a family, but at this point there is no need. It's a luxury I just don't really care about.

caseyamcl 11 years ago |

To frame the situation as 'cars vs gadgets' is missing the bigger picture, and completely ignoring some fundamental reasons for the shift away from car culture.

We are a generation of people who grew up in car world. Car world is a boring, homogenous, safe, segregated, sterile, humanless place. In car world, serendipitous engagement with one's community is impossible. In car world, engagement with other humans is always a car drive away. In car world, we spend 20% of our after-tax income just to move around our environment. In car world, every place is the same as every other place--Target, Starbucks, gad stations, same strip malls, same subdivisions..

We grew up watching 'Friends' and 'Seinfeld' on tv. When we have travelled, we've seen places that seemed more interesting, more human, more exciting than the nowhere-vile isolating housing divisions we spent out childhood in. And we want to go to those places, or create them in our own towns.

And that's why I don't care about whatever car you're trying to sell me--gadget dock or not. It doesn't deliver on its promise of "freedom". It perpetuates the banality that we grew up in.

akurilin 11 years ago | |

That's very well written, I enjoyed that. I would read your blog/twitter if you had one :)

grownseed 11 years ago |

If you came here to find any sort of valuable information, don't waste your time reading this article. From indiscriminately putting a whole generation in the same basket to calling weak gadgetry "innovation", I find this article somewhat condescending, but mostly irrelevant. It addresses the wrong problems with the wrong solutions, fails to provide any kind of substantial information and just feels like the writer wanted to "hear himself".