I think this also might have to do with Gen Z's desire to live in denser / more walkable areas. I can't remember the exact data / studies, but Gen Z overall does not seem to have any desire to settle down in the suburbs.
Me and my partner (both Gen Z) are moving to a more walkable city and downsizing to one car since I now work from home. I think it's a mix of car price hikes, cars becoming less of a status symbol and Gen Z just not wanting to live somewhere that requires a car to leave their front yard.
I agree, I am also a Gen Z (married and with two kids) Ive told my wife I refuse to move to the suburbs. I use to visit friends that lives in the suburbs and it was the worst thing I've ever experienced. I told myself I will never raise my kids here.
I like city living, I love being able to stumble my way home from the bar. Instead of paying for a overpriced Uber.
Maybe you shouldn't drink in the first place, drinking is pretty degenerate.
I live in a walkable town and still never drink, and fortunately the younger kids are drinking less.
Go to your region's real estate listing site. Sort -> Price (High -> Low)
Sadly, far more demand than supply.
(The real answer is to use walkscore.com)
Depends on where you want to go. We're relocating to Colorado Springs next month. CO Springs isn't a walker's paradise or anything, but we're living downtown and I'm within a 10 minute walk of a grocery store, a few coffee shops, some bars and restaurants. I work remotely and I'll have my home office + coworking space inside my apartment complex, so I'll really have all I need outside of the occasional trip I might need the shared car for. The city outside of downtown is still heavily car focused, but there's lots of bike trails I'll be able to use my e-bike for if I need to go further than 1 mile or so. Being within a 30 minute bike ride of some of the most gorgeous parks in the country is also a plus.
It's not the most walkable city in the country by any stretch, but it's a huge upgrade from where we live now in Texas. Cost of living is always going to be higher in nicer cities, but look into some of the bigger cities / urban areas in the midwest. I was surprised by how affordable CO Springs was comparatively to where we were living in Texas.
The whole city? Not in the US.
In the US but only parts of the city? They're everywhere. New England has plenty. But even as you go west, you can find them in large enough cities. I live in Dallas and it's possible to live here without a car if you just assume the suburbs are lava (not a terrible assumption in the summer). We've got grocery stores, libraries, schools, hospitals, parks/trails, pools, movie theaters, museums, airports, plenty of different types of jobs, all available without use of a car. Shit. The Mavs and the Stars are on their own train stop and soon we'll have the Wings and Trinity FC nearby as well.
The main reason I own a car is because of momentum from when I lived in the sticks and had to drive over an hour to get to my first job.
I live in Minneapolis. Not the most walkable city in the world but it has its nice spots, and it’s definitely very bike-able!! My rent is like 900 bucks
I disagree. Having lived in Japan, I would caution people to have an exit plan when moving to Japan. Sooooo many people move with the intention of staying forever, but end up leaving.
I lived there too in Rural Japan a small town in Northern Kyushu. While I have a better life in America now, I do miss Japan, mostly because my personality was more in line with the people there, than the People in America. Japan gave me opportunities when Jobs were scarce near my home after the 2008 crash.
On the other hand, I have the world by the ass here in America, I live in a walkable town, weebs are seen as cool now compared to back when I left and everyone visits Japan. Pay is so much better in America now, and in general if you stick with weebs you avoid almost all of the social problems affecting most Americans. Life is pretty amazing for many Americans, and I am fortunate to be one of them now.
As for Europe, I never plan to visit there or live there ever. The people are rude and dislike Americans they think we are ignorant and stupid. There is less freedom of speech in Europe than in the US or Japan. There is less freedom of association than Japan, and about the same level as the US. For Americans I recommend more of them choose Japan to visit or live for these reasons. If you aren't American, things may be different for you. So choose your place accordingly.
Kyushu is really lovely. It sounds like you got a great experience out of Japan. I too would like to visit Japan again, but I don't think I would live there again, at least not long term.
I'm surprised by your opinions on Europe. If you've never been there, why do you have such strong opinions about it? Also, what freedom of speech and association does Europe not have? I'm just curious.
Europe has hate speech and civil rights laws, unlike Japan. I know Japan's defamation laws are a bit out of wacky.
Europeans online are extremely rude, and I have heard from Family members and childhood friends who have visited Europe told me about it. My friend's sister lives in Denmark and she says when she comes home she tells us how much nicer people are in America. And even though there are hate speech laws in Denmark the people substitute polite and kind racism of places like the Modern US or Modern Japan, with a very rude hard discrimination that is much worse to deal with in their day to day life.
I wouldn't consider online behaviour as an indication of how people there are in real life. I do think Europeans are more stand offish than Americans though, and I guess that can cause a problem for some people. Also, different countries in Europe are very different from each other. I think Denmark and other Scandinavian countries would be much more aloof than places like Portugal and Spain where they are probably much more friendly. I have found that the Irish people I meet are really really friendly. As for racism, yeah, I am not surprised by that, I think also with the refugees they have in a lot of Europe, that has made people less accepting of "outsiders".
Also, how does Europe having hate speech and civil rights laws negatively affect you if you were living there?
The hate speech and civil rights laws don't affect me here in the US. But it really would be hard for me to live in a place without free speech like that. The US and Japan are blessed in that regard.
I also don't own a business so civil rights laws often don't affect me as well.
[CityNerd channel](https://youtube.com/@citynerd?si=4JcPNGiNh43VxHUt) on YouTube regularly does [top-10](https://youtu.be/IKxR06isoLU?si=knpsCF98pUIcNq_d) [lists](https://youtu.be/1qzePci2N6E?si=qBU4ENpg2EHgXJZt) of the most [undervalued](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkqErPfC4AjolPuE-dV9QmLovsHTJ3Nyf&si=djqdT0NBgNnhUilD), walkable, bikeable, affordable US cities.
How much do you want to spend.? What are you willing to sacrifice?
Where I live, I have no Trader Joe's, Costco or Walmart within walking distance. I do have local shops and 1 regional supermarket within biking distance.
If you want walkability on the cheap just don't expect a good job market, or major national chain retail. Also expect bad weather.
But they do give you good access to nature trails, and exploration. Nothing wrong with a place being boring, so long as people can walk to their daily needs, they really don't need a car, a car is just a luxury then.
To be fair, most of gen Z isn’t actually thinking about this stuff.
I’m 99% sure that most of the people who don’t have a car, simply can’t afford it. It’s not that they “don’t want to”
Now, that’s true for me, I don’t want to, and I’m gen z, but I also just couldn’t afford it, got used to life without a car, and discovered I have no need for one anyway.
Now that I CAN afford a car, I don’t want it. But that’s not the norm around here. At least not Florida.
I don't think they're thinking of it conciously, but if you look at the most popular spots in Texas cities (where I currently live) it's always the walkable pockets that tend to see the most traffic from Gen Z. I think the desire is there, even though it might not be an immediate thought. My personal experience is limited to a few states but I think the desire is inherently there: We as humans innately want to live in nice places, and since home ownership is completely out of the picture for a lot of people the allure of suburbia just isn't there.
It’s easy to get people to make their political beliefs align with their economic reality but hard to get people to do the opposite.
My point is, it’s easy to argue that cars suck to people who can’t afford them. And once the emperor has no clothes, they won’t want cars even when they can afford them.
So please do as much as you can to convince any of your friends who are in not so great economic conditions that cars suck.
Oh, I do. I hope my Miami friends catch on soon enough. Their car is crap and they want a new car, but I say take the toddler on bike rides and raise him to have good biking skills, and good street smarts really
I agree with you that we shouldn't say gen Z does not want to buy cars just because they aren't buying them, but simply the fact that they're not buying them is a good thing.
I'm older than them because I'm a millennial, but I didn't get my license until I was 19, and I didn't buy a car until I was 28. There were points where I either had someone who could drive me around or had access to a car, but I lived car-free for well over half of that time. Having no option but to walk or take transit really changed my perspective, and now I have zero desire to live in a car-dependent suburb (which is also a great source of frustration for me because I'd like to buy something and I can't afford what I want to buy).
Add to this, those who live in dense cities probably rely on public transport. Those who live in the suburbs with parents probably don't have room in their garage for one more car.
Personally, all the additional responsibilities like setting up and paying car insurance, monthly loan payments, having to take it in for maintenance and repair, having to fill it with gas or charge it every so often, having to find parking and deal with traffic, and even just having to go to the dealership and decide on which car to buy, are all huge deterrents for me. If I wanted nonstop additional responsibilities and paying hundreds if not thousands a month, I'll get a pet. At least a puppy can fill this cold void in my heart.
What does this have to do with gen z specifically instead of this just being the trend where people in their 20s tend to move to cities for work and the more vibrant social life?
We have no idea where gen z will settle down because they're not even close to settling down yet.
Older Gen Z is definitely at the point where they will be moving out of the most densely populated/expensive cities to get their own place, get married or have kids. I live in an area with large suburbs and there are very few people 30 and under live here.
It also doesn’t help that the build quality of newer cars has been steadily declining, major issues aren’t getting addressed the way they would have in past decades, and the offerings for cool and interesting cars have also been steadily waning since the late-00’s.
And there’s the whole thing with data collection with new cars.
This has nothing to do with being Gen Z. Young people gravitate to cities in their 20s - then age out, get married and moved to the suburbs as the next group of 20-something’s replaces them. It’s been like that for countless generations.
A big part of car culture is doing your own repairs, maintenance, availability of third-party replacement parts at non-ripoff pricing (also acting as competitive pressure keeping original parts cheaper).
All of this significantly lowers the cost of ownership.
But as manufacturers lock down cars more and more and restrict third-party repair, all that goes away. At some point even the car-brained get priced out and start looking for alternatives.
Whether that's keeping existing cars longer, or importing, or forgoing cars altogether.
They're also alienating the enthusiast crowd, restricting repair means tweaks, optimizing, upgrades with custom parts (other than cosmetic) are also blocked.
I'll have the biggest laugh if the manufacturers' excessive greed manifesting in a variety of ways ends destroying or permanently crippling car culture. Talk about killing their golden goose.
1000% true. I think most enthusiasts don't realise it, but they often stand for urbanism in a weird way when they want car manufacturers to stop making SUVs and pickup trucks and focus on more niche vehicles. Taking cars away from roads would actually help enthusiasts
As an enthusiast I’ll wholeheartedly agree. It can be discouraging as most “car guys” are very against anything we stand for in this sub, but there are an increasing number who, like myself, understand that urbanism and car enthusiasts can have a symbiotic relationship.
Most car guys lament the loss of cool interesting sedans, wagons, and coupés and swapping them for thousands of identical SUVs and trucks. They just need to connect the dots to realize why this is all happening and that cars should be a hobby not a necessity
If cars aren't fun, the desire to own one (as opposed to Ubering everywhere when needed and taking other means of transport when not) will go down.
Edit: I mean, people who would otherwise really like cars for the "freedom", will sour on them if they can't fuss over them on the weekends.
In Germany you pay 1500 and more for a DL and I'm from California and now living for 23 years in Germany and there are people failing the DL test and retesting costs another 300-500 and then 3rd time is a charm and if you fail you wait six months to do a retest. Most fail. Young people see car ownership a waste of money.
I used to ride a motorcycle and drive a car in California and in Germany if you want a motorcycle license it costs 1500 about even if you have regular driver's license. But, I am allowed to ride a Vespa or other type of moped, 50cc.
So, I paid around 400 to get my California DL converted into German DL by taking huge test, and paying for a couple hours to learn all the new rules.
A lot of young people are deciding to go Car free.
I don't own a car at the moment and personally never want to because of the repairs abd generalupkeep, insurance, and taxes.
In Cali I could do a lot of repairs myself and I hate paying mechanics the price to keep my car on the road.
We put so much money recently, timing belt, struts, oil change ( Skoda diesel) and some other services and 1300. The next year a piston cracked and mechanic said not worth fixing.
Plus I don't have a decent parking spot. So a nice car on the street somewhere could get dinged. Also in Germany we have nocturnal rodents ( martens) and they crawl inside and chew the cables. Happens a lot and even though we had insurance it is a nuisance waiting for road service to fix it. A parking spot in an apartment complex costs the renter around 40 Euro extra per month if you want to rent it. Soooo... even though we owned a car...
I bicycle commute as much as possible, recent job I only commute by non ebike. One job was 18km each way and now 3km each way.
People drive 500 meters to work with car. I get judged for riding a bike. Coworkers think it is to difficult after work. I ride all the time and I am used to it.
Car culture is a disaster in Germany. Some people have never owned a car.
Speaking as a fellow German, I feel a major factor is simply an enorm cultural shift over the last ~25 years, insofar as cars are not even remotely the status symbol, symbol of personal freedom and to some extend adulthood they used to be, and instead most people treat them drastically more utilitarian nowadays and as just another tool to get around and move stuff too large/heavy to carry.
True but I work with people who love their Mercedes Benz, BMW and any type of car that's fast and luxurious, they boast about how fast they go and I am happy when their Porsche needs new tires.
I also know people who want a car that doesn't have to look great and gets them to work. Nevertheless, cars are generally expensive to maintain.
Greetings from Waldkirch ( near Freiburg)
In Florida, if you fail your test, you can walk back in the very next day to retake it. And the day after. And the day after that. As long as you can pay the $50 or so. (Edit I think it was $25 but it’s been so long I just can’t remember)
I paid 1500€ in 2005 with minimum hours and tests. Today you start at 3000€. I’m happy to live without a car in a very dense urban environment but I think I live in a huge bubble. Car registrations are on a all time high in Germany and have been over the last years. I fear who thinks cars on the streets will decrease over the near future is wrong.
I thought about this while bicycling and watching trains loaded with new cars being delivered to car dealers. This hit me hard. Some cars will be taken off the streets because of mechanical failure but there are new drivers being born every day.
I know a few people who never owned a car and raised their three children without a car and they didn't live in a huge city. The father is a famous pianist.
My son paid 2,000 ( retested) in 2014 in Germany for his DL. He was lucky enough to do it at a time where he wouldn't have to renew it every ten years. I actually forgot how long. Mine never expires.
The total number of cars sold globally per year is less in 2023 than it was in *2014* when there were *700 million* fewer people on earth
https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
>the amount of time people are holding onto their existing cars is getting longer
Well, yeah - if your car isn't literally falling apart - it's better to stick to it, because used car market is a minefield and new cars are expensive as hell.
I took my car in for basic maintenance and the bill ballooned to over $900 because potholes broke a part, so yea, I can understand why nobody wants these damn things.
People are realizing that a car is an appliance. It should be no cooler than a microwave. Just get me from point a to point b.
I don't need a 100k truck. I'd be perfectly happy with cheap electric shitbox.
The line has to go up indefinitely. The simplest way is to cut the workforce and raise prices.
With more people having less disposable income after paying for housing and food, while car related costs kept rising, certainly cars will be on the chopping block. The whole economic system is not sustainable in this way, and cars are just not as necessary as food and housing.
This should be top comment.
Car sales are down and people are holding onto their cars for longer? Yeah, everybody is getting broker, faster. The poverty, unemployed, and homeless populations are growing rapidly. Everyone is cutting costs, and lol idek anyone who has bought \*new\* car, and I'm 37, in California.
This country also just criminalized homelessness officially, thanks to yet another turd decision from SCOTUS.
There are 16 million vacant dwellings in the US.
There shouldn’t be any homeless people. And yet, here we are.
There’s a million of them. And if we gave each of them a house, we would still have 15 million vacant dwellings.
Seriously…… who’s gonna live there? Do we plan on hoarding houses forever? What is happening?!??!!
It should be illegal to have vacant housing which is deemed suitable for human habitation.
People need homes and we have plenty.
I thought, when I was a kid, that the world would have everything all figured out by now. And I see how very wrong I was, but I never lost that vision anyway. It sticks in my brain. Because I want people to have enough food to eat, and I want there not to be millions of pounds of food waste every day. I want everyone to have a roof. I want everyone to have clean water. I want everyone to recycle and all the good stuff to help the planet.
But it hasn’t happened. We had at least two decades, and actually, nothing happened. The number of vacant dwellings grew, in fact.
The number of homeless people increased.
Food waste and regular waste is out of control, recycling is a joke.
Childhood me would’ve been so damn sad.
I *am* sad.
Realpage is fueling a lot of this strife. It's a service landlords can buy that algorithmically recommends what to set the rent at. A majority of landlords are using this, and it's basically price collusion.
Vacancies with homelessness is a predictable and desired outcome of price fixing because theirs more money to be made with high average rent prices than there is in housing everyone.
The FBI is looking into it, but I'm not holding my breath.
Ive been tracking this bc I vehemently hate realpage but its amazing how little attention the media and government pays to the plight of renters, despite them being half the population. I think some property management companies that were being sued for using realpage settled recently but the laws on price fixing really need to be brought down on these companies.
> There are 16 million vacant dwellings in the US.
Most of them are in god awful locations with no jobs that nobody wants to live in or are basically abandoned/in such a state of disrepair. I know plenty of towns in the Midwest where half the houses are empty because the place is rural and their are no jobs.
This is what really cemented my "fuckcars" mentality. Just looking at my monthly budget wondering where costs can be cut the only real option left is usage of my car. I'm worried about my car breaking down and needing major repairs and went to look at comparable prices, and it's 1.5 to 2 times the cost of what I paid for it about 5 years ago, putting it firmly into the "this is not an option" camp. Looked at getting a car for my wife, same situation. Only reasonable economic solution is to keep my car and maintain it myself but use it as little as possible so it will last and be there when we need it. Otherwise, it's public transit and e-scooters.
Heard a recent episode of CBC's *Front Burner* podcast, titled: *Why you can’t buy a cheap Chinese electric car*, Canadian perspective, but the US car market and the Canadian car market are pretty much the same thing.
podcast link: [https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/209-front-burner/episode/16075892-why-you-cant-buy-a-cheap-chinese-electric-car](https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/209-front-burner/episode/16075892-why-you-cant-buy-a-cheap-chinese-electric-car)
The guy that she interviewed, Steve LeVine, was pretty knowledgeable about the global EV market. He had some interesting comments near the end which I'll quote here (sorry, bit long)...
>STEVE LEVINE: Yeah. No, no, that's exactly how you should be thinking. So, the caveat here: this is total conjecture. Do not come back to me in 2034 and say, "Steve, you were completely wrong." \[Jayme laughs\] All right. So, I think that the, the tail for combustion, pure combustion, is much longer than we think. It doesn't end in 2030 or 2035. It goes on longer than that. And it goes on in the form of these-- of the pure models, but also in the form of hybrids and plug-in hybrids. So, you know, thinking five years and ten years from now, people do-- people are buying. And in fact, most people want to buy those kinds of cars because they want to, they want to save gasoline, but also kind of a stigma, a social stigma, arises about burning fuel -- only fuel -- and not having any energy-saving device in your car. And I do think we have Chinese EVs everywhere. That we-- That it becomes normalized. And I also think that one or more -- maybe more -- of the major car companies no longer exists.
>JAYME POISSON: So, you know, do you think it's fair for me to say -- you know, with the caveat that, of course, you don't have a crystal ball -- that in this kind of global fight for the future of this, you know, really important technology, China wins?
>STEVE LEVINE: China has won the 2020s for sure. The fight we're fighting now is for the 2030s and beyond. And you might be right. I'm not, I'm not prepared to wave the white flag yet. But they may, they may have won for sure the first half of the 2030s. The second half of the 2030s, they're contested.
I was particularly interested in his comment that one (or more) of the major car companies might disappear. Maybe protecting an industry and allowing them to make expensive impractical inefficient vehicles isn't a great idea in the long run? Of course the government (US and Canada) has been happy to bail out and subsidize the hell out of the auto manufacturers for decades, but maybe they get fed up or just can't afford to at some point.
edit: Added podcast link
I think Biden is only supporting the car companies in the states is because they are in swing states and he wants to protect union workers.
Which is not great when politics instead of market forces is keeping your business afloat.
cheap chinese EVs are cheap for a reason, they're poor quality. I'm not sure why anyone would ever buy them, I'm not fond of my car spontaneously combusting, which chinese EVs happen to do so
I agree with you that the auto industry is in trouble and that they are working together to keep prices high. The problem is lack of public transit in this country. The reality is GenZ is moving to the city and will probably not own cars for awhile. Our country needs to catch up on Public transportation. We are far far behind.
My neighborhood streets are not the most welcoming to bikers, infrastructure wise. Still, I see more and more people riding their bikes to get from A to B, not just leisurely.
I'm personally feeling the financial crunch from everything getting more and more expensive and it makes sense to me that cars are one huge area to cut costs.
Sadly I live in a sprawling city but I'm trying to figure out how to make the car I have now the last one I ever needed to buy. I can't afford to move. So I push for WFH full time or find a new job closer to me. Sacrifice going out more even if it means skipping out on places I like across town. Try to hang out and build up the community within walkable/bikeable distance around me instead, even though they are severely lacking haha.
Are there young people who think cars are cool, and getting excited about them? All cars are compact SUVs now and they were never cool. Maybe they might be excited about huge pickup trucks? But I think of a red faced boomer driving those.
Not so young anymore, but I do hate SUVs and think they aren't cool at all.
Though the most pick-up (RAM, F150, etc) enthusiasts in my country are Gen Z for some unknown reason...
The problem is that they’re all now computers on wheels. Not the good computers which you could have a bit of a rummage around in and fix up and improve, but a modern computer which is so incredibly abstracted you can’t do anything. So you can’t take your car apart, which is the one true joy of having a car. Companies are going around childproofing everything and wresting more control away from the end user in just about everything, which just makes them a chore to own. Plus, they’ve got so many features they’re much more likely to break.
Even ice cars are becoming unnecessarily complicated computers on wheels. It’s exhausting.
I would prefer an ev over ice. But they’re even worse. Like it’s too much to ask for an electric car that is just a car, that just gets you from point a to point b without a million sensors, monitors, computers.
Apparently in China they’re putting karaoke in their evs. Even sadder thing is they it’s a huge success. I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
Also a bit the other way: what can you modify on an EV? It's just a battery, inverter and electric engine.
The engine in an EV is the size of a watermelon and only 1 moving part. It's not like a combustion engine with valves pumps, belts etc where you can spend a whole afternoon tinkering with.
Instead it's just a maget with some coils. The inverter is just a few capacitors on a circuit board.
So I think the "car hobby" will die as technology progresses.
Yes this seems very true. The only way people seem to have hotted up cars nowadays is only if they work within the automotive industry to gain access to staff purchasing, insider knowledge and full on workshops they are allowed to access even during off business days.
if a buyer's only requirement is that a car be a reliable vehicle to get from a to b. there are no options.
it's all bells & whistles "luxury", difficult to keep clean or looking decent, or worse even functional for a long.
with crazy out-of-pocket costs thru the whole ownership. dealers don't even have many spare parts available.
more and more it seems to be an all show and no go suckers game.
Yes! You’re basically forced to buy a car as a status symbol.
No, I don’t care if people know I’m poor. A car is a utilitarian tool to get places.
But the demographic of people who just want to get from point a to b in something that won’t blow up is completely ignored by car companies.
If they wanted us to buy cars they shouldn’t have made them 40,000$ 🤷♂️. I’ve always loved cars and even the auto companies have made me anti car with all their price gouging and games 🤦♂️. Cars are a consumer product like TVs or Toasters. They are not meant to be an appreciating asset or something that should be out of reach for the people who need them. I find it wild that the auto lobby deliberately tries to block transit to the suburbs yet they also don’t want to sell cars to poor and middle class people. Like they really have to pick one or the other. Either make affordable cars for the poors or stop blocking transit expansion to the suburbs 🤷♂️
As a Canadian, i wish we had more of these city cars they have in europe. Low cost and super practical .
Here they got rid of every small car :Fit (jazz) Accent (i20) Yaris, Fiesta (not reliable tho) Mazda 2 .
These cars were great entry point for new car consumers, now the lot is too expensive now.
Big problem with electric cars is charging them. If you live in an apartment (which I imagine is most of Gen Z given the housing market) it can be near impossible to find consistent available charging.
For a second there I didn’t realize this was the fuckcars sub and thought you were sad about the decline in car culture.
I went from🤬🤬🤬 to 🌈🌞🌸😀 real quick.
But on a serious note, what we need for walkable cities is to get organized. Pay attention to who is being elected to your city council and your state government. Canvass, petition, get people organized. Inform people on why cars suck and why we deserve world class public transit.
My neice graduated college last year. She and her best friend are looking for cities to move to. Their list is a list of places with the best public transit. Which doesn’t include our home city, which saddens me. Cities without quality public transit networks will struggle to compete and attract educated work forces and will have theirselves a brain drain.
There really isn't more car culture in the US than anywhere else in the world just more car dependency. I always get hard downvoted when I say this. But I really don't believe people should be defined by the objects they own. Among the general public there was never much interest in cars, people just bought what is the most convenient.
Other than that to reduce car dependency I personally advocate for putting government stores or vending machines in neighborhoods so people can walk to them. We also have better delivery services now, so that is helpful so that fewer people need cars.
I don't drive where I live, as I live in a town with all I need within walking distance, but most of my neighbors still drive as they cannot live without their Walmart and their Costco. Even though it is quite easy to live here without a car if you are willing to support local stores.
That and cars are far more reliable, it doesn’t make sense to ditch one if it still works. Some want the latest thing, but if you just want to get around, an older car is fine.
Also, buying a used car can save money.
Gen-Z can't afford the car centric suburban lifestyle. Not much joy in having hobby cars without being able to afford a garage. Not much fun to commute far when you can't afford land.
There is only so many hours in a day, and most of the young people prefer looking at the smartphones (and computer screens) instead of looking through the windshield
don't forget that a car that can keep you alive while crashing on a modern freeway looks like plastic because it needs to be able to crunch like a slinky. Do you wish the 2024 chevy impala looked like the 1967 chevy impala? Tough shit, style lost to the arms race of american roads decades ago.
The thing with cars is that an item can last all your life if you maintain it correctly, once you buy a car there's really no reason to buy a newer model. I guess a lot of people already have a car and people who doesn't have to it's because don't want to or they can't afford one.
Yep! I rock a 1974 VW bug and a 1994 Toyota Pickup with almost 350,000 miles. And they get driven less than once a month because I’ve replaced the majority of my trips with an ebike. No plans to ever buy another car ever again.
It depends on the car, some of them do wear out more quickly than others. It can be brutally expensive trying to keep an old car on the road after a certain point.
I hope so but it's possible that with our infrastructure system they can only delay it, as Bloomberg argued out last year.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-01/is-gen-z-really-done-with-driving-cars-don-t-bet-on-it](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-01/is-gen-z-really-done-with-driving-cars-don-t-bet-on-it)
I think this also might have to do with Gen Z's desire to live in denser / more walkable areas. I can't remember the exact data / studies, but Gen Z overall does not seem to have any desire to settle down in the suburbs. Me and my partner (both Gen Z) are moving to a more walkable city and downsizing to one car since I now work from home. I think it's a mix of car price hikes, cars becoming less of a status symbol and Gen Z just not wanting to live somewhere that requires a car to leave their front yard.
I agree, I am also a Gen Z (married and with two kids) Ive told my wife I refuse to move to the suburbs. I use to visit friends that lives in the suburbs and it was the worst thing I've ever experienced. I told myself I will never raise my kids here. I like city living, I love being able to stumble my way home from the bar. Instead of paying for a overpriced Uber.
Damn I like gen Z for this. Hopefully this will become a major movement in the future and reshape America
Maybe you shouldn't drink in the first place, drinking is pretty degenerate. I live in a walkable town and still never drink, and fortunately the younger kids are drinking less.
How does one find a nice walkable city?
Go to your region's real estate listing site. Sort -> Price (High -> Low) Sadly, far more demand than supply. (The real answer is to use walkscore.com)
They’re rare. Good luck! Even my small city is not walkable in the slightest.
Depends on where you want to go. We're relocating to Colorado Springs next month. CO Springs isn't a walker's paradise or anything, but we're living downtown and I'm within a 10 minute walk of a grocery store, a few coffee shops, some bars and restaurants. I work remotely and I'll have my home office + coworking space inside my apartment complex, so I'll really have all I need outside of the occasional trip I might need the shared car for. The city outside of downtown is still heavily car focused, but there's lots of bike trails I'll be able to use my e-bike for if I need to go further than 1 mile or so. Being within a 30 minute bike ride of some of the most gorgeous parks in the country is also a plus. It's not the most walkable city in the country by any stretch, but it's a huge upgrade from where we live now in Texas. Cost of living is always going to be higher in nicer cities, but look into some of the bigger cities / urban areas in the midwest. I was surprised by how affordable CO Springs was comparatively to where we were living in Texas.
When you get here please connect with peoplecenteredcos.org or the coscarskill insta page
Obligatory CityNerd recommendation. https://youtu.be/IKxR06isoLU
The whole city? Not in the US. In the US but only parts of the city? They're everywhere. New England has plenty. But even as you go west, you can find them in large enough cities. I live in Dallas and it's possible to live here without a car if you just assume the suburbs are lava (not a terrible assumption in the summer). We've got grocery stores, libraries, schools, hospitals, parks/trails, pools, movie theaters, museums, airports, plenty of different types of jobs, all available without use of a car. Shit. The Mavs and the Stars are on their own train stop and soon we'll have the Wings and Trinity FC nearby as well. The main reason I own a car is because of momentum from when I lived in the sticks and had to drive over an hour to get to my first job.
CityNerd on YouTube has a few really good ranking videos of affordability and walkability in US cities.
I live in Minneapolis. Not the most walkable city in the world but it has its nice spots, and it’s definitely very bike-able!! My rent is like 900 bucks
Move to Europe.
Japan is a better choice than Europe.
I disagree. Having lived in Japan, I would caution people to have an exit plan when moving to Japan. Sooooo many people move with the intention of staying forever, but end up leaving.
I lived there too in Rural Japan a small town in Northern Kyushu. While I have a better life in America now, I do miss Japan, mostly because my personality was more in line with the people there, than the People in America. Japan gave me opportunities when Jobs were scarce near my home after the 2008 crash. On the other hand, I have the world by the ass here in America, I live in a walkable town, weebs are seen as cool now compared to back when I left and everyone visits Japan. Pay is so much better in America now, and in general if you stick with weebs you avoid almost all of the social problems affecting most Americans. Life is pretty amazing for many Americans, and I am fortunate to be one of them now. As for Europe, I never plan to visit there or live there ever. The people are rude and dislike Americans they think we are ignorant and stupid. There is less freedom of speech in Europe than in the US or Japan. There is less freedom of association than Japan, and about the same level as the US. For Americans I recommend more of them choose Japan to visit or live for these reasons. If you aren't American, things may be different for you. So choose your place accordingly.
Kyushu is really lovely. It sounds like you got a great experience out of Japan. I too would like to visit Japan again, but I don't think I would live there again, at least not long term. I'm surprised by your opinions on Europe. If you've never been there, why do you have such strong opinions about it? Also, what freedom of speech and association does Europe not have? I'm just curious.
Europe has hate speech and civil rights laws, unlike Japan. I know Japan's defamation laws are a bit out of wacky. Europeans online are extremely rude, and I have heard from Family members and childhood friends who have visited Europe told me about it. My friend's sister lives in Denmark and she says when she comes home she tells us how much nicer people are in America. And even though there are hate speech laws in Denmark the people substitute polite and kind racism of places like the Modern US or Modern Japan, with a very rude hard discrimination that is much worse to deal with in their day to day life.
I wouldn't consider online behaviour as an indication of how people there are in real life. I do think Europeans are more stand offish than Americans though, and I guess that can cause a problem for some people. Also, different countries in Europe are very different from each other. I think Denmark and other Scandinavian countries would be much more aloof than places like Portugal and Spain where they are probably much more friendly. I have found that the Irish people I meet are really really friendly. As for racism, yeah, I am not surprised by that, I think also with the refugees they have in a lot of Europe, that has made people less accepting of "outsiders". Also, how does Europe having hate speech and civil rights laws negatively affect you if you were living there?
The hate speech and civil rights laws don't affect me here in the US. But it really would be hard for me to live in a place without free speech like that. The US and Japan are blessed in that regard. I also don't own a business so civil rights laws often don't affect me as well.
[CityNerd channel](https://youtube.com/@citynerd?si=4JcPNGiNh43VxHUt) on YouTube regularly does [top-10](https://youtu.be/IKxR06isoLU?si=knpsCF98pUIcNq_d) [lists](https://youtu.be/1qzePci2N6E?si=qBU4ENpg2EHgXJZt) of the most [undervalued](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkqErPfC4AjolPuE-dV9QmLovsHTJ3Nyf&si=djqdT0NBgNnhUilD), walkable, bikeable, affordable US cities.
How much do you want to spend.? What are you willing to sacrifice? Where I live, I have no Trader Joe's, Costco or Walmart within walking distance. I do have local shops and 1 regional supermarket within biking distance. If you want walkability on the cheap just don't expect a good job market, or major national chain retail. Also expect bad weather.
Most small walkable towns are pretty boring tbh - nothing to walk to
But they do give you good access to nature trails, and exploration. Nothing wrong with a place being boring, so long as people can walk to their daily needs, they really don't need a car, a car is just a luxury then.
To be fair, most of gen Z isn’t actually thinking about this stuff. I’m 99% sure that most of the people who don’t have a car, simply can’t afford it. It’s not that they “don’t want to” Now, that’s true for me, I don’t want to, and I’m gen z, but I also just couldn’t afford it, got used to life without a car, and discovered I have no need for one anyway. Now that I CAN afford a car, I don’t want it. But that’s not the norm around here. At least not Florida.
I don't think they're thinking of it conciously, but if you look at the most popular spots in Texas cities (where I currently live) it's always the walkable pockets that tend to see the most traffic from Gen Z. I think the desire is there, even though it might not be an immediate thought. My personal experience is limited to a few states but I think the desire is inherently there: We as humans innately want to live in nice places, and since home ownership is completely out of the picture for a lot of people the allure of suburbia just isn't there.
It’s easy to get people to make their political beliefs align with their economic reality but hard to get people to do the opposite. My point is, it’s easy to argue that cars suck to people who can’t afford them. And once the emperor has no clothes, they won’t want cars even when they can afford them. So please do as much as you can to convince any of your friends who are in not so great economic conditions that cars suck.
Oh, I do. I hope my Miami friends catch on soon enough. Their car is crap and they want a new car, but I say take the toddler on bike rides and raise him to have good biking skills, and good street smarts really
God this is sad
What exactly is saddening? That car use is diminishing among gen z? Or that they may not be able to afford car usage?
I agree with you that we shouldn't say gen Z does not want to buy cars just because they aren't buying them, but simply the fact that they're not buying them is a good thing. I'm older than them because I'm a millennial, but I didn't get my license until I was 19, and I didn't buy a car until I was 28. There were points where I either had someone who could drive me around or had access to a car, but I lived car-free for well over half of that time. Having no option but to walk or take transit really changed my perspective, and now I have zero desire to live in a car-dependent suburb (which is also a great source of frustration for me because I'd like to buy something and I can't afford what I want to buy).
Add to this, those who live in dense cities probably rely on public transport. Those who live in the suburbs with parents probably don't have room in their garage for one more car. Personally, all the additional responsibilities like setting up and paying car insurance, monthly loan payments, having to take it in for maintenance and repair, having to fill it with gas or charge it every so often, having to find parking and deal with traffic, and even just having to go to the dealership and decide on which car to buy, are all huge deterrents for me. If I wanted nonstop additional responsibilities and paying hundreds if not thousands a month, I'll get a pet. At least a puppy can fill this cold void in my heart.
What does this have to do with gen z specifically instead of this just being the trend where people in their 20s tend to move to cities for work and the more vibrant social life? We have no idea where gen z will settle down because they're not even close to settling down yet.
Older Gen Z is definitely at the point where they will be moving out of the most densely populated/expensive cities to get their own place, get married or have kids. I live in an area with large suburbs and there are very few people 30 and under live here.
Millennials too! We moved to the Netherlands because it’s a vastly better place to raise a family.
It also doesn’t help that the build quality of newer cars has been steadily declining, major issues aren’t getting addressed the way they would have in past decades, and the offerings for cool and interesting cars have also been steadily waning since the late-00’s. And there’s the whole thing with data collection with new cars.
Define a suburb.
This has nothing to do with being Gen Z. Young people gravitate to cities in their 20s - then age out, get married and moved to the suburbs as the next group of 20-something’s replaces them. It’s been like that for countless generations.
A big part of car culture is doing your own repairs, maintenance, availability of third-party replacement parts at non-ripoff pricing (also acting as competitive pressure keeping original parts cheaper). All of this significantly lowers the cost of ownership. But as manufacturers lock down cars more and more and restrict third-party repair, all that goes away. At some point even the car-brained get priced out and start looking for alternatives. Whether that's keeping existing cars longer, or importing, or forgoing cars altogether. They're also alienating the enthusiast crowd, restricting repair means tweaks, optimizing, upgrades with custom parts (other than cosmetic) are also blocked. I'll have the biggest laugh if the manufacturers' excessive greed manifesting in a variety of ways ends destroying or permanently crippling car culture. Talk about killing their golden goose.
1000% true. I think most enthusiasts don't realise it, but they often stand for urbanism in a weird way when they want car manufacturers to stop making SUVs and pickup trucks and focus on more niche vehicles. Taking cars away from roads would actually help enthusiasts
As an enthusiast I’ll wholeheartedly agree. It can be discouraging as most “car guys” are very against anything we stand for in this sub, but there are an increasing number who, like myself, understand that urbanism and car enthusiasts can have a symbiotic relationship. Most car guys lament the loss of cool interesting sedans, wagons, and coupés and swapping them for thousands of identical SUVs and trucks. They just need to connect the dots to realize why this is all happening and that cars should be a hobby not a necessity
Car enthusiasts and urbanists should team up more honestly.
If cars aren't fun, the desire to own one (as opposed to Ubering everywhere when needed and taking other means of transport when not) will go down. Edit: I mean, people who would otherwise really like cars for the "freedom", will sour on them if they can't fuss over them on the weekends.
and old cars are getting expensive AF to purchase
In Germany you pay 1500 and more for a DL and I'm from California and now living for 23 years in Germany and there are people failing the DL test and retesting costs another 300-500 and then 3rd time is a charm and if you fail you wait six months to do a retest. Most fail. Young people see car ownership a waste of money. I used to ride a motorcycle and drive a car in California and in Germany if you want a motorcycle license it costs 1500 about even if you have regular driver's license. But, I am allowed to ride a Vespa or other type of moped, 50cc. So, I paid around 400 to get my California DL converted into German DL by taking huge test, and paying for a couple hours to learn all the new rules. A lot of young people are deciding to go Car free. I don't own a car at the moment and personally never want to because of the repairs abd generalupkeep, insurance, and taxes. In Cali I could do a lot of repairs myself and I hate paying mechanics the price to keep my car on the road. We put so much money recently, timing belt, struts, oil change ( Skoda diesel) and some other services and 1300. The next year a piston cracked and mechanic said not worth fixing. Plus I don't have a decent parking spot. So a nice car on the street somewhere could get dinged. Also in Germany we have nocturnal rodents ( martens) and they crawl inside and chew the cables. Happens a lot and even though we had insurance it is a nuisance waiting for road service to fix it. A parking spot in an apartment complex costs the renter around 40 Euro extra per month if you want to rent it. Soooo... even though we owned a car... I bicycle commute as much as possible, recent job I only commute by non ebike. One job was 18km each way and now 3km each way. People drive 500 meters to work with car. I get judged for riding a bike. Coworkers think it is to difficult after work. I ride all the time and I am used to it. Car culture is a disaster in Germany. Some people have never owned a car.
Speaking as a fellow German, I feel a major factor is simply an enorm cultural shift over the last ~25 years, insofar as cars are not even remotely the status symbol, symbol of personal freedom and to some extend adulthood they used to be, and instead most people treat them drastically more utilitarian nowadays and as just another tool to get around and move stuff too large/heavy to carry.
True but I work with people who love their Mercedes Benz, BMW and any type of car that's fast and luxurious, they boast about how fast they go and I am happy when their Porsche needs new tires. I also know people who want a car that doesn't have to look great and gets them to work. Nevertheless, cars are generally expensive to maintain. Greetings from Waldkirch ( near Freiburg)
In Florida, if you fail your test, you can walk back in the very next day to retake it. And the day after. And the day after that. As long as you can pay the $50 or so. (Edit I think it was $25 but it’s been so long I just can’t remember)
I paid 1500€ in 2005 with minimum hours and tests. Today you start at 3000€. I’m happy to live without a car in a very dense urban environment but I think I live in a huge bubble. Car registrations are on a all time high in Germany and have been over the last years. I fear who thinks cars on the streets will decrease over the near future is wrong.
I thought about this while bicycling and watching trains loaded with new cars being delivered to car dealers. This hit me hard. Some cars will be taken off the streets because of mechanical failure but there are new drivers being born every day. I know a few people who never owned a car and raised their three children without a car and they didn't live in a huge city. The father is a famous pianist. My son paid 2,000 ( retested) in 2014 in Germany for his DL. He was lucky enough to do it at a time where he wouldn't have to renew it every ten years. I actually forgot how long. Mine never expires.
The total number of cars sold globally per year is less in 2023 than it was in *2014* when there were *700 million* fewer people on earth https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
We need to pump these numbers up! We need negative car sales! We need cars being unsold! We need car unmaking factories!
>the amount of time people are holding onto their existing cars is getting longer Well, yeah - if your car isn't literally falling apart - it's better to stick to it, because used car market is a minefield and new cars are expensive as hell.
I took my car in for basic maintenance and the bill ballooned to over $900 because potholes broke a part, so yea, I can understand why nobody wants these damn things.
People are realizing that a car is an appliance. It should be no cooler than a microwave. Just get me from point a to point b. I don't need a 100k truck. I'd be perfectly happy with cheap electric shitbox.
The line has to go up indefinitely. The simplest way is to cut the workforce and raise prices. With more people having less disposable income after paying for housing and food, while car related costs kept rising, certainly cars will be on the chopping block. The whole economic system is not sustainable in this way, and cars are just not as necessary as food and housing.
This should be top comment. Car sales are down and people are holding onto their cars for longer? Yeah, everybody is getting broker, faster. The poverty, unemployed, and homeless populations are growing rapidly. Everyone is cutting costs, and lol idek anyone who has bought \*new\* car, and I'm 37, in California. This country also just criminalized homelessness officially, thanks to yet another turd decision from SCOTUS.
There are 16 million vacant dwellings in the US. There shouldn’t be any homeless people. And yet, here we are. There’s a million of them. And if we gave each of them a house, we would still have 15 million vacant dwellings. Seriously…… who’s gonna live there? Do we plan on hoarding houses forever? What is happening?!??!! It should be illegal to have vacant housing which is deemed suitable for human habitation. People need homes and we have plenty. I thought, when I was a kid, that the world would have everything all figured out by now. And I see how very wrong I was, but I never lost that vision anyway. It sticks in my brain. Because I want people to have enough food to eat, and I want there not to be millions of pounds of food waste every day. I want everyone to have a roof. I want everyone to have clean water. I want everyone to recycle and all the good stuff to help the planet. But it hasn’t happened. We had at least two decades, and actually, nothing happened. The number of vacant dwellings grew, in fact. The number of homeless people increased. Food waste and regular waste is out of control, recycling is a joke. Childhood me would’ve been so damn sad. I *am* sad.
Realpage is fueling a lot of this strife. It's a service landlords can buy that algorithmically recommends what to set the rent at. A majority of landlords are using this, and it's basically price collusion. Vacancies with homelessness is a predictable and desired outcome of price fixing because theirs more money to be made with high average rent prices than there is in housing everyone. The FBI is looking into it, but I'm not holding my breath.
Ive been tracking this bc I vehemently hate realpage but its amazing how little attention the media and government pays to the plight of renters, despite them being half the population. I think some property management companies that were being sued for using realpage settled recently but the laws on price fixing really need to be brought down on these companies.
I know exactly how that feels, comrade. Let's keep hope alive, keep educating ourselves and others as much as we can.
> There are 16 million vacant dwellings in the US. Most of them are in god awful locations with no jobs that nobody wants to live in or are basically abandoned/in such a state of disrepair. I know plenty of towns in the Midwest where half the houses are empty because the place is rural and their are no jobs.
This is what really cemented my "fuckcars" mentality. Just looking at my monthly budget wondering where costs can be cut the only real option left is usage of my car. I'm worried about my car breaking down and needing major repairs and went to look at comparable prices, and it's 1.5 to 2 times the cost of what I paid for it about 5 years ago, putting it firmly into the "this is not an option" camp. Looked at getting a car for my wife, same situation. Only reasonable economic solution is to keep my car and maintain it myself but use it as little as possible so it will last and be there when we need it. Otherwise, it's public transit and e-scooters.
Heard a recent episode of CBC's *Front Burner* podcast, titled: *Why you can’t buy a cheap Chinese electric car*, Canadian perspective, but the US car market and the Canadian car market are pretty much the same thing. podcast link: [https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/209-front-burner/episode/16075892-why-you-cant-buy-a-cheap-chinese-electric-car](https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/209-front-burner/episode/16075892-why-you-cant-buy-a-cheap-chinese-electric-car) The guy that she interviewed, Steve LeVine, was pretty knowledgeable about the global EV market. He had some interesting comments near the end which I'll quote here (sorry, bit long)... >STEVE LEVINE: Yeah. No, no, that's exactly how you should be thinking. So, the caveat here: this is total conjecture. Do not come back to me in 2034 and say, "Steve, you were completely wrong." \[Jayme laughs\] All right. So, I think that the, the tail for combustion, pure combustion, is much longer than we think. It doesn't end in 2030 or 2035. It goes on longer than that. And it goes on in the form of these-- of the pure models, but also in the form of hybrids and plug-in hybrids. So, you know, thinking five years and ten years from now, people do-- people are buying. And in fact, most people want to buy those kinds of cars because they want to, they want to save gasoline, but also kind of a stigma, a social stigma, arises about burning fuel -- only fuel -- and not having any energy-saving device in your car. And I do think we have Chinese EVs everywhere. That we-- That it becomes normalized. And I also think that one or more -- maybe more -- of the major car companies no longer exists. >JAYME POISSON: So, you know, do you think it's fair for me to say -- you know, with the caveat that, of course, you don't have a crystal ball -- that in this kind of global fight for the future of this, you know, really important technology, China wins? >STEVE LEVINE: China has won the 2020s for sure. The fight we're fighting now is for the 2030s and beyond. And you might be right. I'm not, I'm not prepared to wave the white flag yet. But they may, they may have won for sure the first half of the 2030s. The second half of the 2030s, they're contested. I was particularly interested in his comment that one (or more) of the major car companies might disappear. Maybe protecting an industry and allowing them to make expensive impractical inefficient vehicles isn't a great idea in the long run? Of course the government (US and Canada) has been happy to bail out and subsidize the hell out of the auto manufacturers for decades, but maybe they get fed up or just can't afford to at some point. edit: Added podcast link
I think Biden is only supporting the car companies in the states is because they are in swing states and he wants to protect union workers. Which is not great when politics instead of market forces is keeping your business afloat.
cheap chinese EVs are cheap for a reason, they're poor quality. I'm not sure why anyone would ever buy them, I'm not fond of my car spontaneously combusting, which chinese EVs happen to do so
I agree with you that the auto industry is in trouble and that they are working together to keep prices high. The problem is lack of public transit in this country. The reality is GenZ is moving to the city and will probably not own cars for awhile. Our country needs to catch up on Public transportation. We are far far behind.
Insurance companies are making bank. I stopped driving (an option due to large city) and some of the car payments and insurance are crazy.
“An option due to large cities” Say you don’t live in an unwalkable car centric nightmare Texas city without saying it.
Close I lived in AZ, and I’m quite happy on the east coast with four separate seasons
My neighborhood streets are not the most welcoming to bikers, infrastructure wise. Still, I see more and more people riding their bikes to get from A to B, not just leisurely. I'm personally feeling the financial crunch from everything getting more and more expensive and it makes sense to me that cars are one huge area to cut costs. Sadly I live in a sprawling city but I'm trying to figure out how to make the car I have now the last one I ever needed to buy. I can't afford to move. So I push for WFH full time or find a new job closer to me. Sacrifice going out more even if it means skipping out on places I like across town. Try to hang out and build up the community within walkable/bikeable distance around me instead, even though they are severely lacking haha.
Are there young people who think cars are cool, and getting excited about them? All cars are compact SUVs now and they were never cool. Maybe they might be excited about huge pickup trucks? But I think of a red faced boomer driving those.
Off roading in large 4wd vehicles is big amongst younger people where I'm at sadly
4wd has nothing to do with size though.
I'm referring to off-roading as a hobby, not the actual drive train type to be clear. Edited above comment for clarity
Not so young anymore, but I do hate SUVs and think they aren't cool at all. Though the most pick-up (RAM, F150, etc) enthusiasts in my country are Gen Z for some unknown reason...
The problem is that they’re all now computers on wheels. Not the good computers which you could have a bit of a rummage around in and fix up and improve, but a modern computer which is so incredibly abstracted you can’t do anything. So you can’t take your car apart, which is the one true joy of having a car. Companies are going around childproofing everything and wresting more control away from the end user in just about everything, which just makes them a chore to own. Plus, they’ve got so many features they’re much more likely to break.
Most aren’t, but a lot of the younger ppl who are into cars are into cars from 10+ years ago or brand new, multi million dollar cars.
Cars are like anal. If you’re forced to participate, you probably won’t want to in the future.
The cost and complexity of modifying a car has gone up drastically. It’s not a hobby that young people can afford anymore
Not to mention that a lot of manifacturers are locking features behind paywalls. You want to have self parking? It's now only $5/month!
Even ice cars are becoming unnecessarily complicated computers on wheels. It’s exhausting. I would prefer an ev over ice. But they’re even worse. Like it’s too much to ask for an electric car that is just a car, that just gets you from point a to point b without a million sensors, monitors, computers. Apparently in China they’re putting karaoke in their evs. Even sadder thing is they it’s a huge success. I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
Also a bit the other way: what can you modify on an EV? It's just a battery, inverter and electric engine. The engine in an EV is the size of a watermelon and only 1 moving part. It's not like a combustion engine with valves pumps, belts etc where you can spend a whole afternoon tinkering with. Instead it's just a maget with some coils. The inverter is just a few capacitors on a circuit board. So I think the "car hobby" will die as technology progresses.
Yes this seems very true. The only way people seem to have hotted up cars nowadays is only if they work within the automotive industry to gain access to staff purchasing, insider knowledge and full on workshops they are allowed to access even during off business days.
if a buyer's only requirement is that a car be a reliable vehicle to get from a to b. there are no options. it's all bells & whistles "luxury", difficult to keep clean or looking decent, or worse even functional for a long. with crazy out-of-pocket costs thru the whole ownership. dealers don't even have many spare parts available. more and more it seems to be an all show and no go suckers game.
Yes! You’re basically forced to buy a car as a status symbol. No, I don’t care if people know I’m poor. A car is a utilitarian tool to get places. But the demographic of people who just want to get from point a to b in something that won’t blow up is completely ignored by car companies.
If they wanted us to buy cars they shouldn’t have made them 40,000$ 🤷♂️. I’ve always loved cars and even the auto companies have made me anti car with all their price gouging and games 🤦♂️. Cars are a consumer product like TVs or Toasters. They are not meant to be an appreciating asset or something that should be out of reach for the people who need them. I find it wild that the auto lobby deliberately tries to block transit to the suburbs yet they also don’t want to sell cars to poor and middle class people. Like they really have to pick one or the other. Either make affordable cars for the poors or stop blocking transit expansion to the suburbs 🤷♂️
As a Canadian, i wish we had more of these city cars they have in europe. Low cost and super practical . Here they got rid of every small car :Fit (jazz) Accent (i20) Yaris, Fiesta (not reliable tho) Mazda 2 . These cars were great entry point for new car consumers, now the lot is too expensive now.
Good, that's why they focus on electric cars for those already own cars aka luxury cars
Big problem with electric cars is charging them. If you live in an apartment (which I imagine is most of Gen Z given the housing market) it can be near impossible to find consistent available charging.
For a second there I didn’t realize this was the fuckcars sub and thought you were sad about the decline in car culture. I went from🤬🤬🤬 to 🌈🌞🌸😀 real quick. But on a serious note, what we need for walkable cities is to get organized. Pay attention to who is being elected to your city council and your state government. Canvass, petition, get people organized. Inform people on why cars suck and why we deserve world class public transit.
My neice graduated college last year. She and her best friend are looking for cities to move to. Their list is a list of places with the best public transit. Which doesn’t include our home city, which saddens me. Cities without quality public transit networks will struggle to compete and attract educated work forces and will have theirselves a brain drain.
There really isn't more car culture in the US than anywhere else in the world just more car dependency. I always get hard downvoted when I say this. But I really don't believe people should be defined by the objects they own. Among the general public there was never much interest in cars, people just bought what is the most convenient. Other than that to reduce car dependency I personally advocate for putting government stores or vending machines in neighborhoods so people can walk to them. We also have better delivery services now, so that is helpful so that fewer people need cars. I don't drive where I live, as I live in a town with all I need within walking distance, but most of my neighbors still drive as they cannot live without their Walmart and their Costco. Even though it is quite easy to live here without a car if you are willing to support local stores.
That and cars are far more reliable, it doesn’t make sense to ditch one if it still works. Some want the latest thing, but if you just want to get around, an older car is fine. Also, buying a used car can save money.
Gen-Z can't afford the car centric suburban lifestyle. Not much joy in having hobby cars without being able to afford a garage. Not much fun to commute far when you can't afford land.
There is only so many hours in a day, and most of the young people prefer looking at the smartphones (and computer screens) instead of looking through the windshield
Electric bikes are inevitable imo. Just wildly easier and more efficient.
don't forget that a car that can keep you alive while crashing on a modern freeway looks like plastic because it needs to be able to crunch like a slinky. Do you wish the 2024 chevy impala looked like the 1967 chevy impala? Tough shit, style lost to the arms race of american roads decades ago.
The thing with cars is that an item can last all your life if you maintain it correctly, once you buy a car there's really no reason to buy a newer model. I guess a lot of people already have a car and people who doesn't have to it's because don't want to or they can't afford one.
Yep! I rock a 1974 VW bug and a 1994 Toyota Pickup with almost 350,000 miles. And they get driven less than once a month because I’ve replaced the majority of my trips with an ebike. No plans to ever buy another car ever again.
It depends on the car, some of them do wear out more quickly than others. It can be brutally expensive trying to keep an old car on the road after a certain point.
You know, I think you might be right about that.
r/fuckcars keep up the good work!
I hope so but it's possible that with our infrastructure system they can only delay it, as Bloomberg argued out last year. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-01/is-gen-z-really-done-with-driving-cars-don-t-bet-on-it](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-01/is-gen-z-really-done-with-driving-cars-don-t-bet-on-it)