March 5, 2015 • 42 mins
In many ways, the United States is the birthplace of modern car culture. But could the rising costs of ownership, growth of public transit and car share programs spell the end for America's car culture?
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house stuff Works dot com. I welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott and I'm Ben Ben. Today's
topic is one that um it seems to come around
often in the media. It's kind of a cyclical argument, right, Yeah,
(00:24):
it comes up every I don't know, like gas prices rise,
you'll hear this story, or UM auto sales are down,
you'll hear this story. But it has never turned out
to be correct. Yeah, it seems like this as as
a reoccurring theme over the last Hope Man over since
(00:44):
the beginning of time then, and maybe that's a little dramatic,
I should say the beginning of time. How about uh,
decades at least? Yeah, decades and decades. Um. The idea
is that UM car culture is dying, and we're going
to question that because I'll just get this out right
up front. I don't think that it is, and I
don't think you do either, Right, No, I don't. And
(01:06):
there are some interesting reasons behind that. The one of
the big things that came up a few years ago
was that the New York Times, which is not the
be all, end all authority on cars to begin with, Yeah,
had an article come out and let's see June, right, uh,
(01:29):
and it said it touted the end of car culture.
And the question that they said based on UM based
on a couple of statistics like the number of teenagers
getting licenses or holding them, the number of miles driven,
stuff like that, they said that America was beginning to
end its relationship with the car. There have been a
(01:53):
lot of responses to this because what's different about this
time around with this kind of story and I idea
is that the access to information is different because of
the Internet, so a lot of people are able to
respond immediately. Yeah. I can tell you that this this
same idea has been posed time after time after time
(02:14):
between generations. Uh, you know, ever since the automobile has
been around. They say, they said that, um, you know,
the the younger generation just doesn't seem to care about
the car anymore the way that we do UM or
the type of cars that we do. And that's the
main thrust of this whole thing is that people are
just becoming uninterested in and the automobile. And they cite
statistics like um. This one comes from the Guardian UM
(02:39):
a writer named Dominic Rush and Dominic found out that
through his research, I found out that new car purchases
by those age eighteen to thirty four dropped by thirty
in the US between two thousand seven and two thousand twelve. Um.
That's according to Edmunds dot com, right, so the shopping website.
And many Americans under thirty five are not even getting
(03:01):
their license. That's a That's another thing they point to.
They say that the so called millennials, those people that
were born between and this is a crazy range three
to year two thousand, are now the largest generation in
the US, and the trend is starting to worry people
that are building cars. You know, the automakers are starting
to say, oh my gosh, there's this whole group of
people out there that aren't going to buy our product.
(03:23):
Why is that. They're trying to figure out why and
what they can do to turn that around. Um. So,
you know, stats like that are thrown out there, and
there's even more. I mean, um, the number of miles
driven by Americans each year has sort of sort of
declined or it has dropped off. Um. They now tend
to drive a fewer miles per capita than they did
at the end. This is at the end of Bill
(03:43):
Clinton's first term. That's how they put it. That's what
you're saying, like two thousand four was that around when
that was two thousands? Two thousand, two thousand four? Um,
and the uh, let's see it says also the age
group showing the biggest decline is those between ages of
sixteen to thirty four, who drive fewer miles on average
in two thousand nine than they did in two thousand one. Now,
(04:06):
this article is so the two thousand nine data. I
don't know where he's getting that, but um, so again,
you know, fewer miles driven on average UM in those
eight years in between two thousand nine and two thousand one.
So there's staff like that that this seemed to come
out there. There's there's a couple of reasons that they
point to, Um, you know why this is happening, And
(04:27):
one is just a and a lot of people love
to talk about this. Ben there's just a general lack
of interest, right, the idea that this group known as
millennials only sees a car as a way to get
from point to A to point B and doesn't really
have an interest in learning how to fix it, how
to own one, maintain it, but I I take issue
(04:49):
with some of these statistics because Scott, while they may
paint an interesting picture or serve an agenda, when they're
all um sort of curated this way, there are numerous
other reasons that those statistics could come about. Buying a
new car is difficult, especially for a lot of people
(05:09):
in that age trade super expensive. It's super expensive. It's
gonna be um, you know, if you are under thirty,
it's going to be the biggest expense that you pay
for other than college. Yeah, it's a huge, huge purchase.
And you know, we talked about the price of the
average new sedan and it's something like thirty two thousand
dollars at this point or thirty two plus at this point. Yeah,
(05:32):
that's a lot of money. Now scratch. I mean talking
about used cars, I mean you know that that can
you know, the entire range, it doesn't matter what, but
you want to get something decent, so it is still expensive.
I mean I can think back to when I bought
my first used car and it was eleven dollars and
I mean I thought that was a big, big purchase
at the time. But that doesn't even get you in
the door right now for anything that's reliable, that's in
(05:54):
half decent condition, with you know, less than three hundred
thousand miles on it. Um, it's very very difficult find
a quality used car for a low cost. At this point,
let me amend my statement here because I I realized,
of course that a house is a large expense. But
due to a lot of rising costs of just living
(06:15):
at least here in the United States, people are less
likely to buy a car. People are less likely to
buy a house. Yeah, there's a lot more renters right now,
a lot more people that are you know, deciding to
go that route. It's just more affordable for them in
the long run. Um. And as well, as you know
you've mentioned with the the car um, some people are
just opting to not do it. And part of that
is because you know, the This is kind of strange
(06:38):
to say it this way. I hate talking in these
big broad terms because I know this doesn't apply to everybody.
But there is a move to uh to get people
back into the cities now. And you know that wasn't
always the case. It was like before that everybody wanted
to move out to the suburbs and have some space.
Now it seems like you know, the the younger generations,
I guess, and man, I sound old when I say
(06:58):
all this stuff. I understop my law. And that's what
I feel. And I don't mean to. I don't mean
to again. I don't mean to point paint with this
broad brush, and I don't mean to say that's the
way the kids are doing it now or anything like that.
But there is a trend to move back into cities
among the youth. And and that plays into this too
because they rely on public transportation. Friends to get them around,
(07:19):
you know that do drive. You know, friends that maybe
have a car that they were willing to share, um
car sharing programs that they can access, even bike sharing programs,
you know, just to get around the area or walking. Yeah, well,
let me let me point this out. This is another
thing that reminds me about several Mark Twain quotes regarding statistics. Uh,
(07:40):
one of which I can't say because we're a family show.
But here's here's a tricky thing buried in the statistics. Scott.
Remember a few years back when the news hit that
the majority of the human population lives in cities or
urban areas. Yes, okay, so that applies to the entire world.
Not just the United States. Let's consider that all of
(08:02):
the large, dense population centers where most of the data
about people will come from. Those data points, those aggregations
are also in cities where it is not only more expensive,
but much more difficult in general to have a car.
The most expensive parking spot in the World was a
(08:24):
podcast we did earlier where we and I won't spoil
it for you guys, um, but where we found that
even in the places that didn't have the most expensive
parking spot in the United States or in the world, uh,
they were all in places where, um, to be candid man, Uh,
you and I could not afford to to own a car.
(08:45):
Oh no, we're a condo or or even an apartment.
I can maybe buy a pistachio a sandwich on your
way through to your eyes. Yeah, I understand, Um, okay, yeah,
I understand what you're saying. Like it's it's a densely
populated city. Uh, it's difficult to even own a car.
My my brother in law lived in Chicago for a while.
(09:07):
It doesn't anymore. He towards the end of his time
in Chicago finally decided that, yeah, I need a car
to get back and forth, you know, to my parents
house in Michigan. But up until that point, you know,
they would they would rent a car to get back home.
They would take public transportation everywhere, you know, buses, trains,
subway or whatever. They had to be able to get
to and from places in the city. And I think
(09:28):
there was just a point where he realized, like, you know,
I just can't do this anymore for these long distances.
It makes sense for me to get this and then
eventually moved out of the city and uh, you know,
obviously happy that he had something that was capable of
getting him around town, getting him longer distances back and
forth from you know, town town, which is now you know,
several miles away, because he lives out in a suburb
(09:49):
and you absolutely can't really rely on public transportation here
in the United States if you live in the suburbs.
It's just and I know it's kind of hit or miss,
but for the most part, it's really really poor out
in the suburb. Right. Yeah, there are some bus systems,
there are maybe there are some light rail, depend on
(10:10):
where you live. You know, you have to you have
to take the bus or cab to that, like exactly
you can't walk to it as he could in the city.
And this country is so large, the distances are so
great that eventually, when flying becomes prohibitive for people, which
is in the cards, uh, driving will be one of
(10:30):
the only realistic options. So Gelopnik had a great response
to this report by Rosenthal, by Elizabeth Rosenthal, and uh,
their title is a little bit snarky, right. You saw
this when the New York Times doesn't know what car
culture is. Yeah, I did. It was written what two
days later or something like that, Yeah, it was. It
(10:51):
was a very quick response. Um, but they start exploring
the idea, and both of these articles they start exploring
the idea of what is known as peak car. Now,
everybody listening, you're probably familiar with peak oil, which was
something that popped up on the news often. But the
thing about peak car is there's this idea that at
(11:14):
some point in the United States, right, Uh, specifically in
the US, the amount of people willing to buy a
car will have been met, and all of the cars
that could be sold are going to be sold. And
the way we count this is by registered vehicles on
the road. Right, And if you go back to two
(11:36):
thousand and eight, that actually was our peak year. We've
already were on the decline at this point, and that's
why all these articles are being written. Right the two
thousand eight was the peak for the United States. Now
it's not to say that we're not going to reach
another peak. I guess, you know, you can always climb
out of this. Yeah, that peak was just for perspective,
was two hundred and thirty six point four million light
duty vehicles registered vehicles on the road. So that means
(11:59):
that you know, the uh, they decided that you know,
car ownership and usage was was worth it to them.
They registered the vehicle in order to be able to
drive it on the road. So that's that's usable vehicles,
I guess. Right. So, um, that peak, you that peak
car happened in two thousand eight, and after that there
was a there was a kind of a pretty rapid decline.
(12:21):
But that kind of coincides with the recession that's been
going on here, absolutely, housing bubble, all that stuff, right, So, um,
it follows along with the economy very closely. And I
wanted to say that since right around what was it,
two thousand eleven, that number has been climbing back up again.
So you know, the people that said, oh, we've reached
the peak number, and it's it's on its way down.
(12:42):
It's never gonna come back. It's already bounced back. And
in two thousand and eleven the numbers all the way
up to two and thirty three point eight million again. Um,
So the number of car registered, number of cars registered
went back up. Um. But it's also important to point
out that that number is just about as low as
it was in two thousand four, So there was a
(13:04):
an increase between two thousand and four and two thousand eight.
That kind of makes a bit difference of about what
three million vehicles something like. Yeah. And another statistic that
people will throw around a lot is the idea that, uh,
the the idea that the demographic of a average driver's
license holder is changing. It's aging up, yes, right, yeah, yeah,
(13:28):
so that younger drivers are less likely to instantly go
out on their sixteenth birthday and pick up a license
the way that it was back when I was a kid,
and they're more likely to wait until they're they're much older,
you know, maybe even in the thirty five and up group. Um.
And they're finding that the older drivers are holding onto
their licenses longer. So you know this all plays. You
know that that somebody who's eighty years old is still
(13:51):
registering registering their vehicle. They're still licensed to drive, their
hanging onto it, where in the past they might have
been done driving at that point, but they're hanging onto it.
The younger drivers are just simply not even going to
get a license. They just don't care about it. As
as a lot of people say, but is that true?
Is it really true that they don't care? I don't
think it is. I think what's happening here is that
(14:13):
a number of different factors are being conflated to try
to paint an incomplete picture of something that you know,
a boogeyman. Well, cost has to be huge, right, and
cost is hug we're talking about costs, and and think
about this. I mean, it's a lot easier. It was
a lot easier, you know, twenty years ago for a
(14:33):
parent to kind of help finance a car for a
for a kid. Are you kidding? It was easier in
uh an average family, uh in the United States in
the nineteen seventies. Now, somebody helped me check me on
the statistics. I think that's correct that the average you know,
nuclear family with a single income in the nineteen seventies was,
(14:54):
in terms of buying power, better off than the average
family with two incomes today. So they have more available
funds for additional things like vacations, poverty, yeah, or membership
at the golf club or whatever. Yeah, Okay, got it
all right, And so it may not be that. I
just think it's a it's a lot to assume. It's
(15:17):
a big leap to take to say that. Uh, because
people are by less of something, we somehow know their
emotional state, you know what I mean. They're not buying
it because they're not interested. Listen, man, I am so
interested in a packard. Oh I just can't buy one.
And you're you're technically a millennial, right, I am just
(15:40):
outside of the cost Oh I'm in that vin diagram.
I thought you were on the the very low end
of it, or they would be the high end of it.
Like I'm like a harbinger at the early end of it.
I'm a proto millennial. Alright. So, so you're saying that
it's it's tough to say that. You know, they do
have this lack of interest, And I want to point
out that there's another article there's there's many the responses. Right.
(16:01):
One that particularly matches almost exactly my viewpoint that I
that I found was in Hemmings and the Hemmings Blog
and it was written by a guy named Daniel Stroll.
And this is also in July, and he is actually
rehashing an article that he wrote the previous year. And
he wrote it about the collector car hobby because a
(16:22):
lot of people were saying, and this is again the
cyclical thing, a lot of people were saying that the
collector car hobby was dying. At that time. This would
have been back in two thousand twelve. So he says,
I'm going to reprint this knowing that you know, it's
a year later, but it still applies to people talking
about car culture in general dying. And uh. And so
here's what he says, and he calls it well, he says,
(16:43):
here's the millennial concerned to begin with. Right, So here's
where he says, you know all that, and he calls them,
I love this. The handwringers fret about millennials general loss
of interesting cars and statistics h such as those that
were recent released by the Federal Highway Administration and uh.
He again stats SI stats from you know, two thousand twelve.
I guess where He says that forty six point three
(17:04):
percent of potential drivers nineteen and younger had the drivers
licenses in two thousand eight versus sixty four point four
percent in nine. So there's a ten year gap there.
And what is that about? Almost twenty difference in in
the number of people that have their their license or
want their license. Um, he says that, Um, this is
(17:25):
kind of crazy. He says. Other Pole results say so
things like, you know, percent of drivers eighteen to twenty
four would choose internet access over owning a car. Now,
that's a kind of a funny statement. That's a pretty
broad statement, and it's and it's one pole. Yeah, it's
funny to say it that way too. I don't know,
that's a weird way to put it. But um, anyway,
here's what here's what he says that old guys tend
(17:45):
to say so, so basically, it all comes down to
a lack of interest on the part of the youth.
It's always the youth that are having the problem, right,
the youth y. Yeah, the kids that are younger than me,
they don't they just don't understand what's going on right
now with the cars. Right, So, guys tend to blame smartphones, tablets, Facebook, Twitter, uh,
the Internet, all sorts of technology for stealing the attention
(18:07):
of the younger generations. And they also say that um,
and they blame the increasingly restrictive maze of big government
legislation for making it tougher for younger drivers to own, ensure,
and operate a car. And I think I kind of
buy into that a little bit. And they also they
also tend to blame again, these are the old guys
blaming things. They blame the jelly bean fuel injected and
(18:28):
plastic field cars that young drivers have to choose from
these days, which I can kind of see that as well.
And they also kind of blame the you know, the
greater cost of buying and gassing up cars nowadays, so
the the cost of ownership, I suppose, the daily stuff.
Oh man, what is Let me just interjected, this is
a valid point. What is the lowest price for gallon?
(18:51):
You remember paying for gas? I can remember five cents
or maybe eight four eight three cents, And so that's
what about where I'm at too. That would have been
the late nineteen eighties, and it probably would have been
less down here, so when you were starting to drive,
it was probably catching up with that. Yeah. So and
it stayed there for a long time, and that was
(19:12):
pretty much it was right around. You know, it was
less than a dollar for a long long time. Right. So.
The one of the other things here that's interesting, and
not to roll over what you're saying, is that, yeah,
gas does cost more, and the price of gas is
not going to plummet. And the kinds of cars that
people are building today for the mass market or what
(19:35):
we will call the entry level consumer, are radically different there.
They're radically they're more expensive. They a lot of that
is regulation. Go back to our Economy Cars of the
eighties episode and find out what happened there, because yes,
costs skyrocketed, and there's some very good reasons why it happened. Yeah.
And this doesn't mean again that people don't care about cars,
(20:01):
but it does mean that for a lot of people,
the necessities of driving and transit are changing the living
in different places. Okay, I'm gonna interrupt what I'm doing
here with the Hemmings article to go back to the
g Lapping article because the writer there, um, I think
it's Uh, it's matt heart agree. Uh, he writes, and
this is this is important, I think, and it's a
good it's a good way to look at this. He says, Well,
(20:22):
car sales dropping maybe bad for automakers, it's not bad
for autolovers. While car ownership becomes more of a choice
than a necessity, people will buy cars because they desire them,
which will make the cars automakers build more desirable in turn. Now, Okay,
I understand there's kind of that give and take. I
get it, but they're not immediately responsive like that. Um.
(20:43):
But since the Indian goes on to say, since the recession,
cars haven't gotten worse, they've gotten better. They've gotten sportier,
more attractive, more powerful, and yes, more fuel efficient, all
at the same time. I agree with that on some level,
not every I mean, there's always going to be the
odd case right where it didn't happen that way. Um.
But he says, when we empty the roads for commuters,
we free them up for the kind of people who
(21:04):
get in the car just for the joy of it.
That won't kill car culture, that will help save it. Okay,
So he's saying that the cars are actually better since
the recession is hit because automakers are trying to um
focus on what people have been asking for all along
in the in the attempt to make cars that they
want to buy. You know that they're not gonna throw
(21:25):
out a product and say buy it because that's what
we offer. They're gonna say, it's gonna be more targeted
to the people that say, this is what we're looking
for from your product, Can you do it? Now? There
there's some value to that. But let's go back to
the Hyman's article too. And I derailed this a little bit,
but I think there are some important points yet to
make in this one. Sure, yeah, yeah, do you want
(21:46):
me to go or you want to well, I'll take
I'll take one here. There's there's a great comparison here
when they right after they're talking about um old guys
blame the smartphones and the tablets and the what knots
uh they In the very next paragraph, the author goes
on to state that this is being treated kind of
like a roar shack test, you know, and people are
(22:09):
seeing whatever they want to see at this and that
we're forgetting some basic facts about United States geography, which
is that this country is huge yeah, and it's not like, um,
you know, the the dense population centers that we find
in places like China or Europe or all over Europe. Yeah,
I mean we do find centers that I guess you
(22:32):
know places that are like that. I mean, there's the
Los Angeles congestion area, There's the New York congested area.
There's also even i mean right here in Atlanta, there's
a lot of congestion. Um, any major city is going
to have a crowding issue, but not to the extent
that they have over there. It's a it's it's a
little bit different here. And we've built suburbs out in
those and those open bits of land, and you know,
(22:53):
and so we're we're expanding, but we still need to
get to the city center. And that's the problem, Like
how do you get there without the proper transportation And
you have to have your own personal transportation because as
of now, public transportation just doesn't cut it here in
the States. Yeah, unfortunately that is the case. And uh,
let's point out though that they're very well could be
(23:15):
an end of car culture, of postcar culture society somewhere
in those very heavily populated areas and in Europe maybe
or even in um. In some European countries right now,
there are areas where vehicles are banned, you know, except
special exemptions. Well yeah, unless you pay a tax every
(23:36):
time you drive through. Oh yeah, like the road use tax. Yeah,
things like that. And parking, you know, prohibitive parking. I
guess maybe and and maybe who knows, Maybe there is
going to be a time when an urban center in
the United States is completely like that. Maybe one day, Uh,
New York will be like that or San Francisco, but
(23:57):
the entire country. For that to happen, there would have
to be an alternative to a car. And right now
they're just as you're saying, an alternative to cars in
New York and San francis no, no, no. In for
the entire country, Scott, the whole United States to be
in a postcar culture or whatever, there would have to
be like we we've talked about this man. The cost
(24:19):
of the infrastructure alone is massive. Just to build the
interstate system, which remains one of the most impressive feats
of human like human history attimes built. Just to build that,
we had to move mountains literally, I haven't done that earlier.
And uh, and the cost itself was was tremendous. We
(24:42):
would have never done it if it if we were
afraid of transit problems during a world war. And you know,
he goes on to point out, you know, and this
and this Hemming's article that, um, it's sort of a
pick your own bias or your own your own issue
that you want to focus on on and that's kind
of what the old guys are are doing. They're picking
(25:03):
their own thing. They're saying, well, you know, it's the
it's you know, the kids with their Facebook and Twitter
and all that they don't feel like they need to
face to face time, so they don't feel like they
need to get a license. They can drive over to
their friend's house and and um, you know, hang out
on Friday nights with them. They just FaceTime each other
and that's good enough. So the old guys are finding
ways to say, um, you know, it's this one specific
(25:24):
thing that's causing the problem, and and every everybody has
their own idea of how that's working. You know, they
maybe don't have the greatest grasp on, um, what's really happening,
because as this guy points out, you know, you know
that eighteen point one percent gap that we talked about
that aren't getting their license. Well, there's a chance that
those eighteen point one percent wouldn't have become car enthusiasts anyway.
(25:44):
You know, maybe they would not even care they get
their license. They just wouldn't even care about it. Right,
They have some kind of beige commuter car that they
drive around in. Um. So, he says, um, And I'm
just getting paraphrasing all this, but and we'll get to
the part where I really agree with in just a minute.
He says, are any apocalypse, economic collapse, mass migration of
youth into urban areas, or a sudden massive investment in infrastructure,
(26:07):
it's safe to say that the collector car hobby, which
we can substitute for car culture, will continue to go on. Um.
Oh boy. When I read that now, I think, oh,
because there's a couple of things that are going on
right now. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, well, there's the
economic collapse that's happening right there's also sort of a
I mean, in a way, there's a mass migration of
(26:27):
youth into urban areas. That's there's a mass migration of
people there really are, and there's there's some pretty big
investments in infrastructure in some cities as far as trains
and public transic go not everywhere though, it's not like
the country is doing it is one major plan. So
what are we missing here? The apocalypse? Ben, We're just
waiting for the apocalypse, just waiting and what better time
than now? But I okay, look again, this is some
(26:51):
of this stuff is hyperabole. Some of it is to
sell papers. I think that we've we've made a pretty
good case, uh with some of counterpoints to the claims
made in the in the New York Times article, Uh,
there could be a postcar society in parts of the US.
But think about think about how you would travel from
(27:16):
city to city? You know, um would you if you
didn't have a car or you didn't have access to
a car. It is true that driving itself for a
lot of people is changing. You know, like if you're
gonna if you're gonna go out and take a night
on the town, you might call an uber, right, and
(27:36):
so you don't have to flots around the park in
your own car, um or uh, mess around, We'll call
in the cab. But you might have called a cab anyway.
And the idea of autonomous vehicles coming out. I know
everybody is champing at the bit for that one, but
it's gott Autonomous vehicles have been two years away for
(27:57):
what five years or ten year is away for the
last twenty years. Yeah, yeah, it seems like that. So, um,
I know we're not quite wrapping up here yet, but
there's a couple more things that I just I'll skim
this because the last points in this, in this Hemmings article,
this is the one that really spoke to you. He's
closely matched my view on this whole thing, and I
can kind of wrap it up with in just a
(28:18):
few minutes here. Um, he points out. He says this
is not to say, however, that the hobby will remain
frozen in time. It changes with the generations, along with
the relative definition of the word old. So so car
enthusiasts and their twenties, thirties and forties cared less for
muscle cars in the nine fifties chromobiles than they do
for BMW three series, water cool Volkswagons, Fox Body Mustangs
(28:41):
and Nissan z cars. And we totally see this at
the car shows that week, all right, So to them,
those cars that I just mentioned are old cars and
the cars that they admired while they were growing up.
So many of the cars in the nineties are the
ones that are being lovingly preserved, whereas in the past,
you know, like there their parent's cars. They were looking
at the nineties Chromobiles and you know, the the original
(29:04):
Mustangs and things like that. Right, It's just not exactly
the same from generation to generation. And that's what the
older generation tends to expect the younger generation. And it's
never gonna happen. It's I mean, there might be a
few that follow along with the way the parents did it,
but it's not going to happen overall. It's not, again
a broad brush thing that's going to happen for everybody
(29:25):
in that younger generation. And that's part of why we
have clear eras of cars. I do want to point
out one other thing, and I know this is not
an economic show or anything, but something I feel like
a lot of the UM naysayers, the gloom and dumers
are forgetting, is that for somebody leaving college now and
(29:50):
I really lucked out on this one personally, for somebody
leaving college now, it is so much more difficult to
get a job and UM for and college is more expensive.
And uh, for someone who maybe just says I'll skip college,
right and I'll just go straight into learning a trade, right,
the security that came with that trade is no longer
(30:13):
as ironclad as it was. Uh. People are much more
likely to be doing some sort of contract work or
freelance and you're being hired on for a term than
they are to be hired on full time with the
kind of regularity you need to be able to buy
a car. And you know what, that's even the case
with somebody who has graduated college. Uh. There's a lot
(30:33):
of people that I know that work contract work exclusively,
going from three month contract to a six month contract
work to the three month um with the hope that
you know, they'll be employed, and sometimes they are. Ye.
But it's not out of the ordinary for someone with
a college degree to have to accept some contract work initially.
It's not like you go out and get hired in
at the firm and you know, stay on for twenty
years and eventually become a partner. And it's not. It's
(30:56):
not that way all the time. It doesn't always work out,
you're right, So, um, you know, the the economics of
the whole thing are a lot more difficult than they
were in the past. They really are. I just feel
like I just feel like it's I don't want to
say intellectually dishonest, but I do feel like it's convenient
to say these statistics prove that people don't care about
(31:18):
cars while not talking about you know, the brass tacks.
You know, I'm cheap, I care about that sound. I know,
you know that's right. Both of those points are true.
All right, So, UM, you know, I guess maybe the
wrap up on this article and then kind of my
own thoughts at the end, and maybe yours as well. Um.
But the thing is that the overall picture here is
(31:40):
that that the older generation of car enthusiasts can't expect
the younger generation to like and own and restore the
same type of cars and vice versa. And that's that's
pointed out in this article. That every generation has differing
influences and values, and arguing about those only leads to
conflict between the generations. It's it's always gonna lead to,
(32:00):
um an abrasive situation between older and younger people who
who are both interested in cars, they're just not interested
in the same type of cars. And it's frustrating that.
You know, you see and I'm paraphrasing us, now you
see that um. You know people that are that are
both interested in they're just not you know how we
always say kind of um to each his own with
with these car culture things that we've been doing, right,
(32:21):
you know, it's not our thing, but hey have that
because you know, you love it and you enjoy it
and whatever keeps you interested in the hobby is something
that we um, we promote. We would like that, you know,
it's it's good that you're interested in something. Remain with that.
That's something that you know, the older and younger generations
can't seem to work out between them, and it's been
that way for decades and decades and decades. It just
(32:43):
doesn't seem to work out that way. And it's it's
rare when a father passes on to his son or
daughter the exact same type of car and same type
of interests, same everything, because they they're gonna have different
experiences when they're growing up and it's just not gonna
work out that the kid wants exactly what the adult wanted.
And I would say that it's probably good for them
(33:04):
not to because it keeps things different, keeps things interesting.
I mean, otherwise we'd all be riding uh in a
horse and wag horse and buggy. Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
And you know what I feel like. Um, you know,
we've said a lot of this. You know, we've quoted
a lot of stuff in the articles with a lot
of statistics, and if you have more to add, go ahead.
But I need to just get a few things out
(33:25):
there that that are kind of my own. Yeah. I
want to hear I want to hear what you think,
and I think our listeners want to hear it too,
because we've been uh we we've been looking at this
for several days now, well then we've been looking at
this for several years actually, since we've started doing the show.
Because we get to see all the trends, We get
to see the you know, the latest topics, the newest technology.
(33:47):
We get to hear from from people that are right
in the heart of you know, different types of car cultures.
Because we've we've recently talked about the gear, the bus zuku,
We've talked about stance cars, we talked about donks. Yeah, yeah,
I mean a little bit of everything. People that collect
military vehicles, I mean, there's so many different groups. Think
about all the club members that we've had correspondence with
(34:09):
via email or Facebook or whatever. So all those car clubs,
you know, the specialty makes and people that are interested
in just pony cars, people that are interested in um
orphan cars or exotic cars or um even you know,
not even hyper milers. That's kind of a subculture, all
these different cultures, but they don't necessarily get together and communicate,
(34:30):
and they don't know in some cases, they don't even
know the other ones out there exists, So there's that
kind of disconnect in the communication. Um Or they look
at each other and they decide that that's not even
worth my time to look at or it's not worth
bothering with. And I don't like what those people are doing.
They're not real car fans, they're not real car people.
They're not car guys car girls. Because they don't like
(34:51):
what I like, they don't get it. Well, that's a
that's a difficult thing to overcome, you know, to just say,
you know, I know that you're in the uh, you know,
the Nissan Z car club, but I don't really like
it that much because I'm a pony car guy. Myself,
and I'm pretty strict about the definition of a pony car.
So I'm really only in this small group of people here.
I don't I don't like what you're doing over there
(35:11):
in a Z car club, and I don't even in fact,
I don't even really care to learn about it. Oh
and here comes that jerk in the bug club. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
right yeah. And and you know, it could be hyper
milers like I said, or it could be um stance
cars are drift or rat rods or whatever the case
may be. Um. You know, these these groups don't seem
to communicate as well as they probably should. And realize that,
(35:34):
you know, there's there's a lot of people out there
that just have a deep, deep interest in the automobile
in general. It doesn't have to be the type of
automobile that you love. They just have an interest in
automobiles in general. It could be cars, bands, trucks, SUVs,
military vehicles, whatever the case may be. Um. And I
know I'm way overstating this and probably just rehashing a
(35:54):
bunch of stuff, but I do need to get one
last question out here, Ben, And this just goes out
to our listeners as all right, and if you have more,
please do because I feel like this is my kind
of wrap up here, all right. Do you ever just
get in the car and just drive, just just for
the sake of it, just just for the joy of driving.
You ever get in your vehicle and go nowhere in particular?
(36:14):
Yes you do? Yeah? Do that on the weekends or
when do you do that in evenings? Now? I used
to do it a lot more for a couple of
different reasons. Uh. One, I I was in a different car,
which which had better uh better mileage, but uh but
gas was a little bit less. I still do it though,
(36:35):
if I have free time, I love to hop in
the car. Man. I used to have this map. I
think I told you about this. Yeah, yeah, when I
was when I first started driving, I got this map
and I kept it for years. And I took ah,
I took a compass, you know, like the old school
um metal and pencil compass, the poke your eye outcompass. Yeah,
the poke your eye outcompass. And I had mapped in
(36:56):
a circle, uh the places that I drive, and you know,
expanding circles. About how far could I get if I
just drove this way for you know, four hours? How
far could I get if I drove eight hours turned around?
How far could I get if I drove twenty four
hours straight? Stuff like that? And I still love to
(37:17):
do that. But one thing I also find myself doing is, uh,
sometimes I will say, Oh, here's a here's a place
that I haven't been to in a while, that's a
little far away. I'll just I'll just go, you know, nothing,
There's nothing quite like waking up and realizing that you
(37:37):
can go anywhere, you know, if you just if if
you just feel like going, I've I've woken up sometimes.
One time, man, me and the girl I was dating
at the time and one of our buddies, we were having, um,
we were having like we we went to Mexican restaurant
or something and we were college students and uh, over
(37:57):
some cheese dip, we decided we didn't want to go
to school, so we drove down to Florida, like all
the way down to the ocean. Yeah, and it was
it was long drive. And uh when we got there,
we went to like a ruby Tuesdays or something because
it was it was off season. It was the only
thing open. And uh, then we turned around and drove
(38:18):
back and it was great, I know. And it's all
about the journey, right, That's that's the point. And I
did this all the time. I mean, I've got so
many examples of this. And then your map idea is
a fantastic idea, by the way, I think that's a
It's a wonderful thing to do, you know, just to
determine the distances that you can go in one day comfortably.
You know, our X number of hours. If you got
six hours, you can go three hours away and come
(38:38):
three hours back. I would do that all the time.
In fact, I do still do that occasionally now when
I can. It's a lot easier when you're eighteen years old,
and way way easier because now you know, we've got
the the pressures of you know, family life and the
job and all the other stuff that piles on. You
just can't do it quite as much anymore. But I
make time to do it when I can. But when
I was younger and I had that old MG that
(38:59):
we talked out a few times, I would drive that
car and I'm not joking. I would drive it between
five and eight hours a day on the weekend, on
Saturday and Sunday, I would you know, like wax. It
all up on Friday night until about two am. I
get about four hours of sleep and then I head
out on the road and I drive for like eight hours,
and the exhaust fumes were making me sick and everything.
(39:20):
You know, I was probably killing it's probably killing me,
but I love it. And I wasn't going anywhere in particular,
and honestly, honestly, in that car, I wasn't going too
far from home either. I wasn't going like four hours away.
I was just criss crossing town over and over again.
But but different routes, different roads, going through neighborhoods, maybe
stopping at some shops here and they're getting a lunch somewhere. Um,
(39:41):
just making the I was just killing the day, you know.
But it was fun to cruise around in front to
do And I still kind of do that. I did
that in my Festive. I did that my CRX, I
did that my Audie. I do that in my car now. UM,
I will do that in the next car that I have.
I still try to at a much smaller, smaller scale. Um,
you know, things like i'd be working in Michigan, like
(40:01):
a friend's cottage or something like and I think. I
was in North Branch, Michigan, and instead of you know,
getting out of the main highwaystead of turning right to
go home, I turned left and drove up to the
macinaw Bridge one night and I just kind of hung
out up there. I had my fishing pole with me.
I fished for about an hour, and then I drove
home that same night. I didn't stay anywhere. I didn't
sleep in the car or anything like that. It was
(40:22):
just a long like it was like in you know,
twenty three hour day or something like that crazy story.
It was it was fun, I mean, and that's exactly
like your Florida story. Some people just like to get
in the car and drive just for the joy of driving.
And if that type of people are out there, like
you and I like people like you and I are
out there people even if it's just an hour, if
(40:43):
you just go for an hour drive in the country,
If people like that are out there, I think that
the car culture is still strong in this in this country.
I think it's going to remain forever. And we're going
to car show this weekend. It's going to prove that
that's true. We are going to a car show this
weekend and hopefully we will be showing you some video
from it. One one tip if you are considering a
spontaneous road trip, don't take the interstate the whole way.
(41:06):
Just hop off somewhere and see what you find. It's
always the small roads where you're gonna find the adventure.
It always is. It takes a lot longer, but it's
it's so much more enjoyable than just being on the
highway for seven hours, and yeah, way more exciting. I
really do just love the idea that you never know
what's around the next turn, you never know what's over
the next hill. It's just always an adventure every time. Yes,
(41:28):
so let us know if you have taken a spontaneous
road trip. I'd like to hear some road trip stories,
you know, definitely uh and maybe they will make it
to the air on our show in the future. In
the meantime, you can find us on Facebook, you can
find us on Twitter. You can find every podcast we
have ever done on our website car Stuff Show dot com.
(41:49):
And if you're saying, well, I wanna I want to
send you guys road trip stories or suggestions for an
upcoming topic, but I don't like Facebook and Twitter weirds
me out. It's a for millennial. Don't worry. We have
an email address. We are car stuff at how stuff
work dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, this is at how stuff works dot com.
(42:12):
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com. M
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house stuff Works dot com. I welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott and I'm Ben Ben. Today's
topic is one that um it seems to come around
often in the media. It's kind of a cyclical argument, right, Yeah,
(00:24):
it comes up every I don't know, like gas prices rise,
you'll hear this story, or UM auto sales are down,
you'll hear this story. But it has never turned out
to be correct. Yeah, it seems like this as as
a reoccurring theme over the last Hope Man over since
(00:44):
the beginning of time then, and maybe that's a little dramatic,
I should say the beginning of time. How about uh,
decades at least? Yeah, decades and decades. Um. The idea
is that UM car culture is dying, and we're going
to question that because I'll just get this out right
up front. I don't think that it is, and I
don't think you do either, Right, No, I don't. And
(01:06):
there are some interesting reasons behind that. The one of
the big things that came up a few years ago
was that the New York Times, which is not the
be all, end all authority on cars to begin with, Yeah,
had an article come out and let's see June, right, uh,
(01:29):
and it said it touted the end of car culture.
And the question that they said based on UM based
on a couple of statistics like the number of teenagers
getting licenses or holding them, the number of miles driven,
stuff like that, they said that America was beginning to
end its relationship with the car. There have been a
(01:53):
lot of responses to this because what's different about this
time around with this kind of story and I idea
is that the access to information is different because of
the Internet, so a lot of people are able to
respond immediately. Yeah. I can tell you that this this
same idea has been posed time after time after time
(02:14):
between generations. Uh, you know, ever since the automobile has
been around. They say, they said that, um, you know,
the the younger generation just doesn't seem to care about
the car anymore the way that we do UM or
the type of cars that we do. And that's the
main thrust of this whole thing is that people are
just becoming uninterested in and the automobile. And they cite
statistics like um. This one comes from the Guardian UM
(02:39):
a writer named Dominic Rush and Dominic found out that
through his research, I found out that new car purchases
by those age eighteen to thirty four dropped by thirty
in the US between two thousand seven and two thousand twelve. Um.
That's according to Edmunds dot com, right, so the shopping website.
And many Americans under thirty five are not even getting
(03:01):
their license. That's a That's another thing they point to.
They say that the so called millennials, those people that
were born between and this is a crazy range three
to year two thousand, are now the largest generation in
the US, and the trend is starting to worry people
that are building cars. You know, the automakers are starting
to say, oh my gosh, there's this whole group of
people out there that aren't going to buy our product.
(03:23):
Why is that. They're trying to figure out why and
what they can do to turn that around. Um. So,
you know, stats like that are thrown out there, and
there's even more. I mean, um, the number of miles
driven by Americans each year has sort of sort of
declined or it has dropped off. Um. They now tend
to drive a fewer miles per capita than they did
at the end. This is at the end of Bill
(03:43):
Clinton's first term. That's how they put it. That's what
you're saying, like two thousand four was that around when
that was two thousands? Two thousand, two thousand four? Um,
and the uh, let's see it says also the age
group showing the biggest decline is those between ages of
sixteen to thirty four, who drive fewer miles on average
in two thousand nine than they did in two thousand one. Now,
(04:06):
this article is so the two thousand nine data. I
don't know where he's getting that, but um, so again,
you know, fewer miles driven on average UM in those
eight years in between two thousand nine and two thousand one.
So there's staff like that that this seemed to come
out there. There's there's a couple of reasons that they
point to, Um, you know why this is happening, And
(04:27):
one is just a and a lot of people love
to talk about this. Ben there's just a general lack
of interest, right, the idea that this group known as
millennials only sees a car as a way to get
from point to A to point B and doesn't really
have an interest in learning how to fix it, how
to own one, maintain it, but I I take issue
(04:49):
with some of these statistics because Scott, while they may
paint an interesting picture or serve an agenda, when they're
all um sort of curated this way, there are numerous
other reasons that those statistics could come about. Buying a
new car is difficult, especially for a lot of people
(05:09):
in that age trade super expensive. It's super expensive. It's
gonna be um, you know, if you are under thirty,
it's going to be the biggest expense that you pay
for other than college. Yeah, it's a huge, huge purchase.
And you know, we talked about the price of the
average new sedan and it's something like thirty two thousand
dollars at this point or thirty two plus at this point. Yeah,
(05:32):
that's a lot of money. Now scratch. I mean talking
about used cars, I mean you know that that can
you know, the entire range, it doesn't matter what, but
you want to get something decent, so it is still expensive.
I mean I can think back to when I bought
my first used car and it was eleven dollars and
I mean I thought that was a big, big purchase
at the time. But that doesn't even get you in
the door right now for anything that's reliable, that's in
(05:54):
half decent condition, with you know, less than three hundred
thousand miles on it. Um, it's very very difficult find
a quality used car for a low cost. At this point,
let me amend my statement here because I I realized,
of course that a house is a large expense. But
due to a lot of rising costs of just living
(06:15):
at least here in the United States, people are less
likely to buy a car. People are less likely to
buy a house. Yeah, there's a lot more renters right now,
a lot more people that are you know, deciding to
go that route. It's just more affordable for them in
the long run. Um. And as well, as you know
you've mentioned with the the car um, some people are
just opting to not do it. And part of that
is because you know, the This is kind of strange
(06:38):
to say it this way. I hate talking in these
big broad terms because I know this doesn't apply to everybody.
But there is a move to uh to get people
back into the cities now. And you know that wasn't
always the case. It was like before that everybody wanted
to move out to the suburbs and have some space.
Now it seems like you know, the the younger generations,
I guess, and man, I sound old when I say
(06:58):
all this stuff. I understop my law. And that's what
I feel. And I don't mean to. I don't mean
to again. I don't mean to point paint with this
broad brush, and I don't mean to say that's the
way the kids are doing it now or anything like that.
But there is a trend to move back into cities
among the youth. And and that plays into this too
because they rely on public transportation. Friends to get them around,
(07:19):
you know that do drive. You know, friends that maybe
have a car that they were willing to share, um
car sharing programs that they can access, even bike sharing programs,
you know, just to get around the area or walking. Yeah, well,
let me let me point this out. This is another
thing that reminds me about several Mark Twain quotes regarding statistics. Uh,
(07:40):
one of which I can't say because we're a family show.
But here's here's a tricky thing buried in the statistics. Scott.
Remember a few years back when the news hit that
the majority of the human population lives in cities or
urban areas. Yes, okay, so that applies to the entire world.
Not just the United States. Let's consider that all of
(08:02):
the large, dense population centers where most of the data
about people will come from. Those data points, those aggregations
are also in cities where it is not only more expensive,
but much more difficult in general to have a car.
The most expensive parking spot in the World was a
(08:24):
podcast we did earlier where we and I won't spoil
it for you guys, um, but where we found that
even in the places that didn't have the most expensive
parking spot in the United States or in the world, uh,
they were all in places where, um, to be candid man, Uh,
you and I could not afford to to own a car.
(08:45):
Oh no, we're a condo or or even an apartment.
I can maybe buy a pistachio a sandwich on your
way through to your eyes. Yeah, I understand, Um, okay, yeah,
I understand what you're saying. Like it's it's a densely
populated city. Uh, it's difficult to even own a car.
My my brother in law lived in Chicago for a while.
(09:07):
It doesn't anymore. He towards the end of his time
in Chicago finally decided that, yeah, I need a car
to get back and forth, you know, to my parents
house in Michigan. But up until that point, you know,
they would they would rent a car to get back home.
They would take public transportation everywhere, you know, buses, trains,
subway or whatever. They had to be able to get
to and from places in the city. And I think
(09:28):
there was just a point where he realized, like, you know,
I just can't do this anymore for these long distances.
It makes sense for me to get this and then
eventually moved out of the city and uh, you know,
obviously happy that he had something that was capable of
getting him around town, getting him longer distances back and
forth from you know, town town, which is now you know,
several miles away, because he lives out in a suburb
(09:49):
and you absolutely can't really rely on public transportation here
in the United States if you live in the suburbs.
It's just and I know it's kind of hit or miss,
but for the most part, it's really really poor out
in the suburb. Right. Yeah, there are some bus systems,
there are maybe there are some light rail, depend on
(10:10):
where you live. You know, you have to you have
to take the bus or cab to that, like exactly
you can't walk to it as he could in the city.
And this country is so large, the distances are so
great that eventually, when flying becomes prohibitive for people, which
is in the cards, uh, driving will be one of
(10:30):
the only realistic options. So Gelopnik had a great response
to this report by Rosenthal, by Elizabeth Rosenthal, and uh,
their title is a little bit snarky, right. You saw
this when the New York Times doesn't know what car
culture is. Yeah, I did. It was written what two
days later or something like that, Yeah, it was. It
(10:51):
was a very quick response. Um, but they start exploring
the idea, and both of these articles they start exploring
the idea of what is known as peak car. Now,
everybody listening, you're probably familiar with peak oil, which was
something that popped up on the news often. But the
thing about peak car is there's this idea that at
(11:14):
some point in the United States, right, Uh, specifically in
the US, the amount of people willing to buy a
car will have been met, and all of the cars
that could be sold are going to be sold. And
the way we count this is by registered vehicles on
the road. Right, And if you go back to two
(11:36):
thousand and eight, that actually was our peak year. We've
already were on the decline at this point, and that's
why all these articles are being written. Right the two
thousand eight was the peak for the United States. Now
it's not to say that we're not going to reach
another peak. I guess, you know, you can always climb
out of this. Yeah, that peak was just for perspective,
was two hundred and thirty six point four million light
duty vehicles registered vehicles on the road. So that means
(11:59):
that you know, the uh, they decided that you know,
car ownership and usage was was worth it to them.
They registered the vehicle in order to be able to
drive it on the road. So that's that's usable vehicles,
I guess. Right. So, um, that peak, you that peak
car happened in two thousand eight, and after that there
was a there was a kind of a pretty rapid decline.
(12:21):
But that kind of coincides with the recession that's been
going on here, absolutely, housing bubble, all that stuff, right, So, um,
it follows along with the economy very closely. And I
wanted to say that since right around what was it,
two thousand eleven, that number has been climbing back up again.
So you know, the people that said, oh, we've reached
the peak number, and it's it's on its way down.
(12:42):
It's never gonna come back. It's already bounced back. And
in two thousand and eleven the numbers all the way
up to two and thirty three point eight million again. Um,
So the number of car registered, number of cars registered
went back up. Um. But it's also important to point
out that that number is just about as low as
it was in two thousand four, So there was a
(13:04):
an increase between two thousand and four and two thousand eight.
That kind of makes a bit difference of about what
three million vehicles something like. Yeah. And another statistic that
people will throw around a lot is the idea that, uh,
the the idea that the demographic of a average driver's
license holder is changing. It's aging up, yes, right, yeah, yeah,
(13:28):
so that younger drivers are less likely to instantly go
out on their sixteenth birthday and pick up a license
the way that it was back when I was a kid,
and they're more likely to wait until they're they're much older,
you know, maybe even in the thirty five and up group. Um.
And they're finding that the older drivers are holding onto
their licenses longer. So you know this all plays. You
know that that somebody who's eighty years old is still
(13:51):
registering registering their vehicle. They're still licensed to drive, their
hanging onto it, where in the past they might have
been done driving at that point, but they're hanging onto it.
The younger drivers are just simply not even going to
get a license. They just don't care about it. As
as a lot of people say, but is that true?
Is it really true that they don't care? I don't
think it is. I think what's happening here is that
(14:13):
a number of different factors are being conflated to try
to paint an incomplete picture of something that you know,
a boogeyman. Well, cost has to be huge, right, and
cost is hug we're talking about costs, and and think
about this. I mean, it's a lot easier. It was
a lot easier, you know, twenty years ago for a
(14:33):
parent to kind of help finance a car for a
for a kid. Are you kidding? It was easier in
uh an average family, uh in the United States in
the nineteen seventies. Now, somebody helped me check me on
the statistics. I think that's correct that the average you know,
nuclear family with a single income in the nineteen seventies was,
(14:54):
in terms of buying power, better off than the average
family with two incomes today. So they have more available
funds for additional things like vacations, poverty, yeah, or membership
at the golf club or whatever. Yeah, Okay, got it
all right, And so it may not be that. I
just think it's a it's a lot to assume. It's
(15:17):
a big leap to take to say that. Uh, because
people are by less of something, we somehow know their
emotional state, you know what I mean. They're not buying
it because they're not interested. Listen, man, I am so
interested in a packard. Oh I just can't buy one.
And you're you're technically a millennial, right, I am just
(15:40):
outside of the cost Oh I'm in that vin diagram.
I thought you were on the the very low end
of it, or they would be the high end of it.
Like I'm like a harbinger at the early end of it.
I'm a proto millennial. Alright. So, so you're saying that
it's it's tough to say that. You know, they do
have this lack of interest, And I want to point
out that there's another article there's there's many the responses. Right.
(16:01):
One that particularly matches almost exactly my viewpoint that I
that I found was in Hemmings and the Hemmings Blog
and it was written by a guy named Daniel Stroll.
And this is also in July, and he is actually
rehashing an article that he wrote the previous year. And
he wrote it about the collector car hobby because a
(16:22):
lot of people were saying, and this is again the
cyclical thing, a lot of people were saying that the
collector car hobby was dying. At that time. This would
have been back in two thousand twelve. So he says,
I'm going to reprint this knowing that you know, it's
a year later, but it still applies to people talking
about car culture in general dying. And uh. And so
here's what he says, and he calls it well, he says,
(16:43):
here's the millennial concerned to begin with. Right, So here's
where he says, you know all that, and he calls them,
I love this. The handwringers fret about millennials general loss
of interesting cars and statistics h such as those that
were recent released by the Federal Highway Administration and uh.
He again stats SI stats from you know, two thousand twelve.
I guess where He says that forty six point three
(17:04):
percent of potential drivers nineteen and younger had the drivers
licenses in two thousand eight versus sixty four point four
percent in nine. So there's a ten year gap there.
And what is that about? Almost twenty difference in in
the number of people that have their their license or
want their license. Um, he says that, Um, this is
(17:25):
kind of crazy. He says. Other Pole results say so
things like, you know, percent of drivers eighteen to twenty
four would choose internet access over owning a car. Now,
that's a kind of a funny statement. That's a pretty
broad statement, and it's and it's one pole. Yeah, it's
funny to say it that way too. I don't know,
that's a weird way to put it. But um, anyway,
here's what here's what he says that old guys tend
(17:45):
to say so, so basically, it all comes down to
a lack of interest on the part of the youth.
It's always the youth that are having the problem, right,
the youth y. Yeah, the kids that are younger than me,
they don't they just don't understand what's going on right
now with the cars. Right, So, guys tend to blame smartphones, tablets, Facebook, Twitter, uh,
the Internet, all sorts of technology for stealing the attention
(18:07):
of the younger generations. And they also say that um,
and they blame the increasingly restrictive maze of big government
legislation for making it tougher for younger drivers to own, ensure,
and operate a car. And I think I kind of
buy into that a little bit. And they also they
also tend to blame again, these are the old guys
blaming things. They blame the jelly bean fuel injected and
(18:28):
plastic field cars that young drivers have to choose from
these days, which I can kind of see that as well.
And they also kind of blame the you know, the
greater cost of buying and gassing up cars nowadays, so
the the cost of ownership, I suppose, the daily stuff.
Oh man, what is Let me just interjected, this is
a valid point. What is the lowest price for gallon?
(18:51):
You remember paying for gas? I can remember five cents
or maybe eight four eight three cents, And so that's
what about where I'm at too. That would have been
the late nineteen eighties, and it probably would have been
less down here, so when you were starting to drive,
it was probably catching up with that. Yeah. So and
it stayed there for a long time, and that was
(19:12):
pretty much it was right around. You know, it was
less than a dollar for a long long time. Right. So.
The one of the other things here that's interesting, and
not to roll over what you're saying, is that, yeah,
gas does cost more, and the price of gas is
not going to plummet. And the kinds of cars that
people are building today for the mass market or what
(19:35):
we will call the entry level consumer, are radically different there.
They're radically they're more expensive. They a lot of that
is regulation. Go back to our Economy Cars of the
eighties episode and find out what happened there, because yes,
costs skyrocketed, and there's some very good reasons why it happened. Yeah.
And this doesn't mean again that people don't care about cars,
(20:01):
but it does mean that for a lot of people,
the necessities of driving and transit are changing the living
in different places. Okay, I'm gonna interrupt what I'm doing
here with the Hemmings article to go back to the
g Lapping article because the writer there, um, I think
it's Uh, it's matt heart agree. Uh, he writes, and
this is this is important, I think, and it's a
good it's a good way to look at this. He says, Well,
(20:22):
car sales dropping maybe bad for automakers, it's not bad
for autolovers. While car ownership becomes more of a choice
than a necessity, people will buy cars because they desire them,
which will make the cars automakers build more desirable in turn. Now, Okay,
I understand there's kind of that give and take. I
get it, but they're not immediately responsive like that. Um.
(20:43):
But since the Indian goes on to say, since the recession,
cars haven't gotten worse, they've gotten better. They've gotten sportier,
more attractive, more powerful, and yes, more fuel efficient, all
at the same time. I agree with that on some level,
not every I mean, there's always going to be the
odd case right where it didn't happen that way. Um.
But he says, when we empty the roads for commuters,
we free them up for the kind of people who
(21:04):
get in the car just for the joy of it.
That won't kill car culture, that will help save it. Okay,
So he's saying that the cars are actually better since
the recession is hit because automakers are trying to um
focus on what people have been asking for all along
in the in the attempt to make cars that they
want to buy. You know that they're not gonna throw
(21:25):
out a product and say buy it because that's what
we offer. They're gonna say, it's gonna be more targeted
to the people that say, this is what we're looking
for from your product, Can you do it? Now? There
there's some value to that. But let's go back to
the Hyman's article too. And I derailed this a little bit,
but I think there are some important points yet to
make in this one. Sure, yeah, yeah, do you want
(21:46):
me to go or you want to well, I'll take
I'll take one here. There's there's a great comparison here
when they right after they're talking about um old guys
blame the smartphones and the tablets and the what knots
uh they In the very next paragraph, the author goes
on to state that this is being treated kind of
like a roar shack test, you know, and people are
(22:09):
seeing whatever they want to see at this and that
we're forgetting some basic facts about United States geography, which
is that this country is huge yeah, and it's not like, um,
you know, the the dense population centers that we find
in places like China or Europe or all over Europe. Yeah,
I mean we do find centers that I guess you
(22:32):
know places that are like that. I mean, there's the
Los Angeles congestion area, There's the New York congested area.
There's also even i mean right here in Atlanta, there's
a lot of congestion. Um, any major city is going
to have a crowding issue, but not to the extent
that they have over there. It's a it's it's a
little bit different here. And we've built suburbs out in
those and those open bits of land, and you know,
(22:53):
and so we're we're expanding, but we still need to
get to the city center. And that's the problem, Like
how do you get there without the proper transportation And
you have to have your own personal transportation because as
of now, public transportation just doesn't cut it here in
the States. Yeah, unfortunately that is the case. And uh,
let's point out though that they're very well could be
(23:15):
an end of car culture, of postcar culture society somewhere
in those very heavily populated areas and in Europe maybe
or even in um. In some European countries right now,
there are areas where vehicles are banned, you know, except
special exemptions. Well yeah, unless you pay a tax every
(23:36):
time you drive through. Oh yeah, like the road use tax. Yeah,
things like that. And parking, you know, prohibitive parking. I
guess maybe and and maybe who knows, Maybe there is
going to be a time when an urban center in
the United States is completely like that. Maybe one day, Uh,
New York will be like that or San Francisco, but
(23:57):
the entire country. For that to happen, there would have
to be an alternative to a car. And right now
they're just as you're saying, an alternative to cars in
New York and San francis no, no, no. In for
the entire country, Scott, the whole United States to be
in a postcar culture or whatever, there would have to
be like we we've talked about this man. The cost
(24:19):
of the infrastructure alone is massive. Just to build the
interstate system, which remains one of the most impressive feats
of human like human history attimes built. Just to build that,
we had to move mountains literally, I haven't done that earlier.
And uh, and the cost itself was was tremendous. We
(24:42):
would have never done it if it if we were
afraid of transit problems during a world war. And you know,
he goes on to point out, you know, and this
and this Hemming's article that, um, it's sort of a
pick your own bias or your own your own issue
that you want to focus on on and that's kind
of what the old guys are are doing. They're picking
(25:03):
their own thing. They're saying, well, you know, it's the
it's you know, the kids with their Facebook and Twitter
and all that they don't feel like they need to
face to face time, so they don't feel like they
need to get a license. They can drive over to
their friend's house and and um, you know, hang out
on Friday nights with them. They just FaceTime each other
and that's good enough. So the old guys are finding
ways to say, um, you know, it's this one specific
(25:24):
thing that's causing the problem, and and every everybody has
their own idea of how that's working. You know, they
maybe don't have the greatest grasp on, um, what's really happening,
because as this guy points out, you know, you know
that eighteen point one percent gap that we talked about
that aren't getting their license. Well, there's a chance that
those eighteen point one percent wouldn't have become car enthusiasts anyway.
(25:44):
You know, maybe they would not even care they get
their license. They just wouldn't even care about it. Right,
They have some kind of beige commuter car that they
drive around in. Um. So, he says, um, And I'm
just getting paraphrasing all this, but and we'll get to
the part where I really agree with in just a minute.
He says, are any apocalypse, economic collapse, mass migration of
youth into urban areas, or a sudden massive investment in infrastructure,
(26:07):
it's safe to say that the collector car hobby, which
we can substitute for car culture, will continue to go on. Um.
Oh boy. When I read that now, I think, oh,
because there's a couple of things that are going on
right now. Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, well, there's the
economic collapse that's happening right there's also sort of a
I mean, in a way, there's a mass migration of
(26:27):
youth into urban areas. That's there's a mass migration of
people there really are, and there's there's some pretty big
investments in infrastructure in some cities as far as trains
and public transic go not everywhere though, it's not like
the country is doing it is one major plan. So
what are we missing here? The apocalypse? Ben, We're just
waiting for the apocalypse, just waiting and what better time
than now? But I okay, look again, this is some
(26:51):
of this stuff is hyperabole. Some of it is to
sell papers. I think that we've we've made a pretty
good case, uh with some of counterpoints to the claims
made in the in the New York Times article, Uh,
there could be a postcar society in parts of the US.
But think about think about how you would travel from
(27:16):
city to city? You know, um would you if you
didn't have a car or you didn't have access to
a car. It is true that driving itself for a
lot of people is changing. You know, like if you're
gonna if you're gonna go out and take a night
on the town, you might call an uber, right, and
(27:36):
so you don't have to flots around the park in
your own car, um or uh, mess around, We'll call
in the cab. But you might have called a cab anyway.
And the idea of autonomous vehicles coming out. I know
everybody is champing at the bit for that one, but
it's gott Autonomous vehicles have been two years away for
(27:57):
what five years or ten year is away for the
last twenty years. Yeah, yeah, it seems like that. So, um,
I know we're not quite wrapping up here yet, but
there's a couple more things that I just I'll skim
this because the last points in this, in this Hemmings article,
this is the one that really spoke to you. He's
closely matched my view on this whole thing, and I
can kind of wrap it up with in just a
(28:18):
few minutes here. Um, he points out. He says this
is not to say, however, that the hobby will remain
frozen in time. It changes with the generations, along with
the relative definition of the word old. So so car
enthusiasts and their twenties, thirties and forties cared less for
muscle cars in the nine fifties chromobiles than they do
for BMW three series, water cool Volkswagons, Fox Body Mustangs
(28:41):
and Nissan z cars. And we totally see this at
the car shows that week, all right, So to them,
those cars that I just mentioned are old cars and
the cars that they admired while they were growing up.
So many of the cars in the nineties are the
ones that are being lovingly preserved, whereas in the past,
you know, like there their parent's cars. They were looking
at the nineties Chromobiles and you know, the the original
(29:04):
Mustangs and things like that. Right, It's just not exactly
the same from generation to generation. And that's what the
older generation tends to expect the younger generation. And it's
never gonna happen. It's I mean, there might be a
few that follow along with the way the parents did it,
but it's not going to happen overall. It's not, again
a broad brush thing that's going to happen for everybody
(29:25):
in that younger generation. And that's part of why we
have clear eras of cars. I do want to point
out one other thing, and I know this is not
an economic show or anything, but something I feel like
a lot of the UM naysayers, the gloom and dumers
are forgetting, is that for somebody leaving college now and
(29:50):
I really lucked out on this one personally, for somebody
leaving college now, it is so much more difficult to
get a job and UM for and college is more expensive.
And uh, for someone who maybe just says I'll skip college,
right and I'll just go straight into learning a trade, right,
the security that came with that trade is no longer
(30:13):
as ironclad as it was. Uh. People are much more
likely to be doing some sort of contract work or
freelance and you're being hired on for a term than
they are to be hired on full time with the
kind of regularity you need to be able to buy
a car. And you know what, that's even the case
with somebody who has graduated college. Uh. There's a lot
(30:33):
of people that I know that work contract work exclusively,
going from three month contract to a six month contract
work to the three month um with the hope that
you know, they'll be employed, and sometimes they are. Ye.
But it's not out of the ordinary for someone with
a college degree to have to accept some contract work initially.
It's not like you go out and get hired in
at the firm and you know, stay on for twenty
years and eventually become a partner. And it's not. It's
(30:56):
not that way all the time. It doesn't always work out,
you're right, So, um, you know, the the economics of
the whole thing are a lot more difficult than they
were in the past. They really are. I just feel
like I just feel like it's I don't want to
say intellectually dishonest, but I do feel like it's convenient
to say these statistics prove that people don't care about
(31:18):
cars while not talking about you know, the brass tacks.
You know, I'm cheap, I care about that sound. I know,
you know that's right. Both of those points are true.
All right, So, UM, you know, I guess maybe the
wrap up on this article and then kind of my
own thoughts at the end, and maybe yours as well. Um.
But the thing is that the overall picture here is
(31:40):
that that the older generation of car enthusiasts can't expect
the younger generation to like and own and restore the
same type of cars and vice versa. And that's that's
pointed out in this article. That every generation has differing
influences and values, and arguing about those only leads to
conflict between the generations. It's it's always gonna lead to,
(32:00):
um an abrasive situation between older and younger people who
who are both interested in cars, they're just not interested
in the same type of cars. And it's frustrating that.
You know, you see and I'm paraphrasing us, now you
see that um. You know people that are that are
both interested in they're just not you know how we
always say kind of um to each his own with
with these car culture things that we've been doing, right,
(32:21):
you know, it's not our thing, but hey have that
because you know, you love it and you enjoy it
and whatever keeps you interested in the hobby is something
that we um, we promote. We would like that, you know,
it's it's good that you're interested in something. Remain with that.
That's something that you know, the older and younger generations
can't seem to work out between them, and it's been
that way for decades and decades and decades. It just
(32:43):
doesn't seem to work out that way. And it's it's
rare when a father passes on to his son or
daughter the exact same type of car and same type
of interests, same everything, because they they're gonna have different
experiences when they're growing up and it's just not gonna
work out that the kid wants exactly what the adult wanted.
And I would say that it's probably good for them
(33:04):
not to because it keeps things different, keeps things interesting.
I mean, otherwise we'd all be riding uh in a
horse and wag horse and buggy. Yeah, yeah, exactly right.
And you know what I feel like. Um, you know,
we've said a lot of this. You know, we've quoted
a lot of stuff in the articles with a lot
of statistics, and if you have more to add, go ahead.
But I need to just get a few things out
(33:25):
there that that are kind of my own. Yeah. I
want to hear I want to hear what you think,
and I think our listeners want to hear it too,
because we've been uh we we've been looking at this
for several days now, well then we've been looking at
this for several years actually, since we've started doing the show.
Because we get to see all the trends, We get
to see the you know, the latest topics, the newest technology.
(33:47):
We get to hear from from people that are right
in the heart of you know, different types of car cultures.
Because we've we've recently talked about the gear, the bus zuku,
We've talked about stance cars, we talked about donks. Yeah, yeah,
I mean a little bit of everything. People that collect
military vehicles, I mean, there's so many different groups. Think
about all the club members that we've had correspondence with
(34:09):
via email or Facebook or whatever. So all those car clubs,
you know, the specialty makes and people that are interested
in just pony cars, people that are interested in um
orphan cars or exotic cars or um even you know,
not even hyper milers. That's kind of a subculture, all
these different cultures, but they don't necessarily get together and communicate,
(34:30):
and they don't know in some cases, they don't even
know the other ones out there exists, So there's that
kind of disconnect in the communication. Um Or they look
at each other and they decide that that's not even
worth my time to look at or it's not worth
bothering with. And I don't like what those people are doing.
They're not real car fans, they're not real car people.
They're not car guys car girls. Because they don't like
(34:51):
what I like, they don't get it. Well, that's a
that's a difficult thing to overcome, you know, to just say,
you know, I know that you're in the uh, you know,
the Nissan Z car club, but I don't really like
it that much because I'm a pony car guy. Myself,
and I'm pretty strict about the definition of a pony car.
So I'm really only in this small group of people here.
I don't I don't like what you're doing over there
(35:11):
in a Z car club, and I don't even in fact,
I don't even really care to learn about it. Oh
and here comes that jerk in the bug club. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
right yeah. And and you know, it could be hyper
milers like I said, or it could be um stance
cars are drift or rat rods or whatever the case
may be. Um. You know, these these groups don't seem
to communicate as well as they probably should. And realize that,
(35:34):
you know, there's there's a lot of people out there
that just have a deep, deep interest in the automobile
in general. It doesn't have to be the type of
automobile that you love. They just have an interest in
automobiles in general. It could be cars, bands, trucks, SUVs,
military vehicles, whatever the case may be. Um. And I
know I'm way overstating this and probably just rehashing a
(35:54):
bunch of stuff, but I do need to get one
last question out here, Ben, And this just goes out
to our listeners as all right, and if you have more,
please do because I feel like this is my kind
of wrap up here, all right. Do you ever just
get in the car and just drive, just just for
the sake of it, just just for the joy of driving.
You ever get in your vehicle and go nowhere in particular?
(36:14):
Yes you do? Yeah? Do that on the weekends or
when do you do that in evenings? Now? I used
to do it a lot more for a couple of
different reasons. Uh. One, I I was in a different car,
which which had better uh better mileage, but uh but
gas was a little bit less. I still do it though,
(36:35):
if I have free time, I love to hop in
the car. Man. I used to have this map. I
think I told you about this. Yeah, yeah, when I
was when I first started driving, I got this map
and I kept it for years. And I took ah,
I took a compass, you know, like the old school
um metal and pencil compass, the poke your eye outcompass. Yeah,
the poke your eye outcompass. And I had mapped in
(36:56):
a circle, uh the places that I drive, and you know,
expanding circles. About how far could I get if I
just drove this way for you know, four hours? How
far could I get if I drove eight hours turned around?
How far could I get if I drove twenty four
hours straight? Stuff like that? And I still love to
(37:17):
do that. But one thing I also find myself doing is, uh,
sometimes I will say, Oh, here's a here's a place
that I haven't been to in a while, that's a
little far away. I'll just I'll just go, you know, nothing,
There's nothing quite like waking up and realizing that you
(37:37):
can go anywhere, you know, if you just if if
you just feel like going, I've I've woken up sometimes.
One time, man, me and the girl I was dating
at the time and one of our buddies, we were having, um,
we were having like we we went to Mexican restaurant
or something and we were college students and uh, over
(37:57):
some cheese dip, we decided we didn't want to go
to school, so we drove down to Florida, like all
the way down to the ocean. Yeah, and it was
it was long drive. And uh when we got there,
we went to like a ruby Tuesdays or something because
it was it was off season. It was the only
thing open. And uh, then we turned around and drove
(38:18):
back and it was great, I know. And it's all
about the journey, right, That's that's the point. And I
did this all the time. I mean, I've got so
many examples of this. And then your map idea is
a fantastic idea, by the way, I think that's a
It's a wonderful thing to do, you know, just to
determine the distances that you can go in one day comfortably.
You know, our X number of hours. If you got
six hours, you can go three hours away and come
(38:38):
three hours back. I would do that all the time.
In fact, I do still do that occasionally now when
I can. It's a lot easier when you're eighteen years old,
and way way easier because now you know, we've got
the the pressures of you know, family life and the
job and all the other stuff that piles on. You
just can't do it quite as much anymore. But I
make time to do it when I can. But when
I was younger and I had that old MG that
(38:59):
we talked out a few times, I would drive that
car and I'm not joking. I would drive it between
five and eight hours a day on the weekend, on
Saturday and Sunday, I would you know, like wax. It
all up on Friday night until about two am. I
get about four hours of sleep and then I head
out on the road and I drive for like eight hours,
and the exhaust fumes were making me sick and everything.
(39:20):
You know, I was probably killing it's probably killing me,
but I love it. And I wasn't going anywhere in particular,
and honestly, honestly, in that car, I wasn't going too
far from home either. I wasn't going like four hours away.
I was just criss crossing town over and over again.
But but different routes, different roads, going through neighborhoods, maybe
stopping at some shops here and they're getting a lunch somewhere. Um,
(39:41):
just making the I was just killing the day, you know.
But it was fun to cruise around in front to
do And I still kind of do that. I did
that in my Festive. I did that my CRX, I
did that my Audie. I do that in my car now. UM,
I will do that in the next car that I have.
I still try to at a much smaller, smaller scale. Um,
you know, things like i'd be working in Michigan, like
(40:01):
a friend's cottage or something like and I think. I
was in North Branch, Michigan, and instead of you know,
getting out of the main highwaystead of turning right to
go home, I turned left and drove up to the
macinaw Bridge one night and I just kind of hung
out up there. I had my fishing pole with me.
I fished for about an hour, and then I drove
home that same night. I didn't stay anywhere. I didn't
sleep in the car or anything like that. It was
(40:22):
just a long like it was like in you know,
twenty three hour day or something like that crazy story.
It was it was fun, I mean, and that's exactly
like your Florida story. Some people just like to get
in the car and drive just for the joy of driving.
And if that type of people are out there, like
you and I like people like you and I are
out there people even if it's just an hour, if
(40:43):
you just go for an hour drive in the country,
If people like that are out there, I think that
the car culture is still strong in this in this country.
I think it's going to remain forever. And we're going
to car show this weekend. It's going to prove that
that's true. We are going to a car show this
weekend and hopefully we will be showing you some video
from it. One one tip if you are considering a
spontaneous road trip, don't take the interstate the whole way.
(41:06):
Just hop off somewhere and see what you find. It's
always the small roads where you're gonna find the adventure.
It always is. It takes a lot longer, but it's
it's so much more enjoyable than just being on the
highway for seven hours, and yeah, way more exciting. I
really do just love the idea that you never know
what's around the next turn, you never know what's over
the next hill. It's just always an adventure every time. Yes,
(41:28):
so let us know if you have taken a spontaneous
road trip. I'd like to hear some road trip stories,
you know, definitely uh and maybe they will make it
to the air on our show in the future. In
the meantime, you can find us on Facebook, you can
find us on Twitter. You can find every podcast we
have ever done on our website car Stuff Show dot com.
(41:49):
And if you're saying, well, I wanna I want to
send you guys road trip stories or suggestions for an
upcoming topic, but I don't like Facebook and Twitter weirds
me out. It's a for millennial. Don't worry. We have
an email address. We are car stuff at how stuff
work dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, this is at how stuff works dot com.
(42:12):
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com. M
CarStuff News
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Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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