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After 38,000 layoffs, Wall Street wakes up to 'peak car'

thatfrenchguy 7y ago
Finally. Let's start building again things designed for humans ?
- clintonb 7y ago
  Cars are designed for humans.
  - ctidd 7y ago
    Cars are designed for humans, then infrastructure is designed for cars. That step of removal from being designed for humans conflicts with any idea that designing for cars is design for humans by proxy: disproportionately catering to automotive concerns has negative affects on humans relying on their infrastructure to facilitate other forms of transport, or otherwise to not excessively distort either the urban or natural environment they are members of.
  - gullywhumper 7y ago
    Only if you’re in one - otherwise that oversized pickup is designed to just plow on through puny humans in their path -crosswalks and bike lanes are no match!
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Trouble is everything around them is designed for cars. Shopping and other amenities get spaced out too far, residential areas are bisected and cut off by unfriendly, loud and smelly tarmac rivers. Acres of space are given to resting, care and feeding of cars. They get special places to gather: the out of town shopping centre. They get priority over other forms of transport in most places. The humans come next. We should design residential areas, cities, shopping and communities for people first once again. Then we wouldn't need to think about a car as often.
- noobermin 7y ago
  If you look at autofatalities (including of pedestrians and cyclists), share of public transit and bike usage, and other such related statistics over time, they closely track the cost of gas. Ironically, of course, production of new cars doesn't neccessarily mean less car usage over the <10 year term (since cars don't magically burn up), but it may mean good news for those who want to wean their cities off of cars.
  - shdh 7y ago
    > ...they closely track the cost of gas. Could you post a source backing your claim?
throwayEngineer 7y ago
Seeing Tesla hit 50B but GM be around 60B makes me wonder if auto is under valued. Transportation is boring but necessary. These companies also have plenty of experience and infrastructure. Sales are marketing based.
- endorphone 7y ago
  Enterprise Value (EV) is a far better representation of the value of companies, considering that both shareholders and debt-holders have a stake in the company. Tesla has an EV of $43B. GM has an EV of $135B.
  - dd36 7y ago
    Yes, GM and F have a lot of debt.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > if auto is under valued What does 'auto' mean in this context?
  - neppo 7y ago
    the automotive market
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      Do you mean cars?
- Edmond 7y ago
  I think it is more likely that Telsa is simply grossly over valued, even with the recent collapse of its market value. I used to be quite bullish on Telsa...until I bought a 2019 Mazda 3 this past weekend. It is basically a Telsa that cost me $25K...Prior to this weekend I drove a Mazda 6 that I bought in 2006. While car shopping I came to realize that most of the things that made Telsa exciting are rapidly being integrated into standard consumer vehicles. With Elon's seeming unsuitability for the role of car company CEO and if it is the case that Telsa doesn't have much of an edge over the competition, it is hard to see Telsa pulling through in the long haul.
mmcru 7y ago
The sense of security that comes with keeping a gassed (or charged) vehicle in my driveway doesn't seem like it will go away any time soon. If a family member needs to go to the emergency room, or a natural disaster strikes, Uber isn't going to cut it.
- inawarminister 7y ago
  If natural disasters strike, is it possible for you to bug out without getting stuck with thousands or hundreds of thousands other car users as well? Just asking, because a backup secondary route either on foot or smaller off-road vehicles (motorbikes or just regular bikes) might be prudent for planning. But yeah, many time-sensitive events are able to be easily solved with our own cars. There's a flexibility that is absent when relying on public transit and ride-sharing. Does it worth the trade-off of maintaining your own vehicle and it's attendant issues? In my opinion, it is. For some others, it isn't. It would be better if cars can become a non-essential for everyone in the world though, or at least the urbanites. Less traffic jams for the rest of us.
  - shrimp_emoji 7y ago
    https://imgur.com/fLNs3k0 https://imgur.com/fLNs3k0 Have you ever considered how trains are our best implementation of the abstract idea of efficient, terrestrial mass transit?
- ip26 7y ago
  However, you can obtain that security without one and a half cars per adult in the family. If you can figure out how to bike, walk, or bus most of the time and your significant other can too, you get nearly all of that security with one vehicle per family and a lot of money to put towards other things.
- XorNot 7y ago
  That car doesn't need to be replaced every 3 years though, especially if new features aren't being added.
Animats 7y ago
Well, yes. Most of the developed world hit "peak baby" a while back. We're going to see a lot of "peak ..." over the next decade or so.
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  please allow me to vote here for the "peak Amazon" prediction
- noobermin 7y ago
  If you're assuming it is a global maximum sure your sentiment is right. The key is in the word global, where the domain is the history of mankind and its entire future.
newnewpdro 7y ago
> Why would you, when it's cheaper to ride around in someone else's? As if there's zero risk associated in getting into someone else's car... Not to mention any vehicle I willfully own will never barrage me with advertisements or surveil my movements. Uber is burning billions of dollars in an attempt to corner the market. When/If they succeed, do you really think they won't put the screws to the customers living in circumstances where car ownership has likely become all but impossible? The prices will shoot up, the monetization of the personal data will increase, the in-vehicle advertising will increase, the whole experience will become worse than what the end-game of yellow cabs looked like. I fully expect the self-driving Ubers of the future to partner with the police in arresting people. You get in the car you ordered, it knows your identity, it reports all rides to the police system, if a boolean comes back true, the doors lock and it drives you to the jail entrance for processing. It's just another revenue stream.
- clintonb 7y ago
  > I fully expect the self-driving Ubers of the future to partner with the police in arresting people. What!? I'm not following your logic. If there is a warrant for your arrest, and law enforcement is tracking your phone, law enforcement can simply come pick you up in a squad car.
  - newnewpdro 7y ago
    What do you think is more cost effective? Do you actually think there are sufficient LEOs to run around chasing phones for every petty outstanding warrant? Why bother even trying when they can just be delivered by a robot.
    - redbluegreen 7y ago
      Not only this but Uber even give you the passenger's destination, tracking a phone doesn't give you that.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      >Do you actually think there are sufficient LEOs to run around chasing phones for every petty outstanding warrant. Cities are ringed with rich suburbs with overstaffed police departments full of bored cops. I can see them being very interested in a product that scrapes cell subscriber and location data to ID people with outstanding warrants. I fully agree with you that there's aren't sufficient resources to track down every deadbeat that failed to show up in court, or accumulated too many parking tickets or whatever. However, things that make it easier and cheaper to find people do not bode well for free society. Think about the kind of sigint that went into catching Bin Laden. Now imagine a world where 99% of that is automated and the police feel it's reasonable to use it to catch petty thieves.
rdm_blackhole 7y ago
I am not surprised honestly. Cars are a money pit. They cost a lot to run and a lot to buy and depreciate in value. Take for example our car: - we bought a used 2007 Yaris 3 years ago for AUD$ 6K. - every year we have to pay a registration fee in Australia which is AUD$ 650. - insurance is $AUD 200 per year - car service every 6 months is AUD$ 330. - random repairs in the last 3 years: AUD$ 700 - Petrol cost is AUD $60 every second month on average. We only use the car on the weekend to go to the beach 1h30 hours away, to buy groceries and visit my wife's family 600 km from where we live twice a year. The total cost of ownership: AUD$ 12310 The car is probably worth AUD$ 4.5k now and we only drove 35k km in the last 3 years as we use public transports a lot. The only reason that we have kept it around is for the what ifs. I am starting to think that this is probably the last car that we will own.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  That insurance of $200/year (AUD, let alone USD) sounds super cheap. Also $1.5k deprivation for 3 years of use sounds super good as well. Is car ownership in Australia really that cheap? I drive even less than you do (6k for around 3 years), and bought new as well, but find the car super useful because of our toddler, Uber simply doesn’t do car seats well and the bus doesn’t go to the pediatrician.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - samplatt 7y ago
    His car is a Yaris, one of the smallest Toyotas (comparatively) that have ever been made, and Australia scales registration to size/purpose of the vehicle. Larger SUV's or 4WD's have anything in the $300-$600 yearly registration fee, ~1500-2k for yearly insurance, and a LOT more on fuel.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      More specifically, Australian vehicle registration fees, in the three states I've owned vehicles, are based on the number of cylinders and whether the vehicle is used for commercial or private use.
analog31 7y ago
>>>> But that's not all. As on-demand services like Uber and Lyft grow their customer bases, more people will decide they no longer need to own a car of their own. Why would you, when it's cheaper to ride around in someone else's? Hopefully Lyft and Uber are stepping stones, but at the present moment, both of them depend on someone having bought a personal car at some point. I haven't used them very much yet (my bike is one reason, being a double bassist is another) but from what I can tell, nobody buys a new car to drive Lyft/Uber, and it wouldn't make financial sense. I've noticed a definite culture shift regarding our relationship with cars. My generation: Every kid arranged their affairs so they could get their drivers license on their 16th birthday, and worked a job so they could have a car. My kids and their friends are ambivalent about cars and driving. When they finish college, taking on a car payment will be the last thing on their minds.
- cududa 7y ago
  The funniest thing I heard, which totally makes sense, was from my 16 year old cousin. Apparently it’s common to sneak out, walk a few blocks and take an Uber to a house party!
chank 7y ago
RE: As on-demand services like Uber and Lyft grow their customer bases, more people will decide they no longer need to own a car of their own. Is it really more expensive to own than use a ride share service? Seems to only be reasonable when you have a monthly payment and even then depending on how much that payment is and how much you go out; it still may be less expensive to have your own. I own my car outright. Calculated, it costs me roughly ~2500 a year to keep it, baring any catastrophe. Thats Insurance, gas, maintenance, inspection, registration, and a few hundred on top for surprise road trips. On the other hand to take an uber/lyft "only" to-and-from work each weekday would cost me ~6000 per year (ride + tip using the cheapest option). Add on for any additional activities and it goes up considerably from there. Don't get me wrong, I would love to not have to own a car, but it really is cheaper and more convenient for me to do so. I live in a major US city.
- albertshin 7y ago
  Yes. There's convenience in not having to find / pay / be restricted by parking.
- microtherion 7y ago
  > I own my car outright. Calculated, it costs me roughly ~2500 a year to keep it, Does that include depreciation? Even if you own the car outright, it seems to me that a proper cost accounting should include the cost of eventual replacement of the car. > On the other hand to take an uber/lyft "only" to-and-from work each weekday Yes, I think if your daily commute depends on a car, ownership is the most cost effective model. But an increasing number of people are finding ways to commute in other ways.
  - xur17 7y ago
    > Does that include depreciation? Even if you own the car outright, it seems to me that a proper cost accounting should include the cost of eventual replacement of the car. I did a similar calculation and found it cost me ~$2k, and this includes depreciation, car insurance, opportunity cost (funds would be invested @ ~8% return if they weren't locked in a car - this accounted for ~40% of the cost), registration, regular repairs, and depreciation. If you have to pay for parking and tickets, this math changes pretty dramatically.
lawrenceg 7y ago
I believe it is more a matter of affordability than anything else and it only applies to people living in or around the downtown core of major cities in NA. Unless one of the on-demand ride sharing services, gets some kind of membership going, that would be cheaper monthly than owning a car outright, I don't see it. Most people need the convenience of owning a vehicle and having it available 24/7. I do see more services like Turo helping with reducing the financial burden of car ownership though.
- hossbeast 7y ago
  Then how else do you explain the data presented in the piece?
mrunkel 7y ago
The problem with cars is that they are great for individuals, but terrible for society. For individuals, they greatly increase your mobility and open new possibilities. For societies, they are loud, dirty, dangerous, and require expensive roads which take up large swaths of land. It is this dichotomy that prevents us as humans from properly understanding the cost of the vehicles we drive. I see all over this thread people calculating the cost of their vehicle in dollars, but this grossly underestimates the cost to society as a whole. In regards to the article, how much visibility do western analysts have into the Chinese automotive market? If domestic sales aren’t accurately monitored, this would explain why the Chinese market has dropped.
- 1123581321 7y ago
  Society also benefits from individuals having increased mobility and the options that brings.
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    Well obviously, as societal utility is the aggregate of individual utility. The point was about the parts of the utility (or disutility) equations that are hidden from individuals.
- Sharlin 7y ago
  Cars are a textbook example of the tragedy of the commons. Everybody would personally benefit if everyone else drove less, as long as they themselves can keep driving. Capitalism is exceedingly poor at accounting for negative externalities, and many armchair economists don't seem to even acknowledge negative externalities exist because they are a "hidden" cost not determined by the market and paid by third parties. Any economist worth their salt, of course, says that as a mechanism created specifically to solve coordination problems like this, it's the government's job to put a real price on negative externalities.
- hedora 7y ago
  Trains, electric scooters (think Vespa, not Lime) and electric rickshaws are all extremely popular in China. If we changed traffic laws (and automotive subsidies) in the US to make them more feasible in cities, I imagine small electric vehicles would take a huge dent out of the automotive industry here.
rossdavidh 7y ago
I totally believe that many people no longer are enamored of owning a car. I do not believe Uber/Lyft/etc. will be the cause of "peak car". For one thing, given their cash burn rate, I don't believe that Uber/Lyft/etc. will be around in 5 years, at least in their current form. They will either merge with a conventional cab company, fold entirely, or massively downsize.
- Alex3917 7y ago
  I think Uber / Lyft can mostly replace cars for people who don't have unusual hobbies. It's relatively easy to find a place to live where you can use public transportation to get to work, and it's relatively easy to use public transportation or car sharing / rental to visit friends and family or go away for the weekend. But if you live in NYC and your hobby is gold prospecting or something then that model breaks down really fast.
11thEarlOfMar 7y ago
Another factor to watch as this plays out is that electric cars have the potential of a 50 year useful life. The drive train of some makes is purported to be 500,000 in the current shipping battery technology and advances are expected to take that to 1,000,000 miles on the drive train. Compare that to ICE cars that wear out pretty reliably in the 200,000 - 250,000 range. For a typical US buyer who drives 12,500 miles per year, 1,000,000 means they can drive the car for 80 years. They could skip buying the next 4 cars.
- ghostcluster 7y ago
  The problem with this is that the most expensive component of electric cars: the batteries, have a ridiculously short lifespan, and they become less and less powerful with every recharge
  - acdha 7y ago
    Are cars really built to make them impossible to replace? I had been under the impression that multiple companies were working on the replace & reclaim model.
  - Brakenshire 7y ago
    Old electric cars that had to push the envelope of the usage margins of their batteries were bad, but Tesla batteries show minimal degradation on average. If you stay within safety margins and within temperature ranges batteries go on for a long time. The higher the range of the battery, the more luxury you have to stay within a safety margin, and proper thermal management is becoming standard even at the lower end of the market.
  - Alex3917 7y ago
    The lifespan of car batteries is 15 - 20 years, and they only cost a few thousand bucks to replace.
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      The cost of replacing Prius batteries was a big concern ten years ago. Seems less of a concern today. As in no one talks about ti anymore. Probably because it takes a mechanic half an afternoon to do. And the cost of the batteries has come down. With the new generation of electric cars the cost of replacing the battery isn't what it would cost today, but what it will cost in 15 years. Probably will be reasonably cheap.
RickJWagner 7y ago
"Honda said it would close its factory in Swindon, England" Exceptionally sad news for car nuts like myself. Swindon is the birthplace of the magnificent Honda 2.0 turbo powering the Civic Type R. BTW, I love the pics that accompany the article. Starsky and Hutch's Torino, the Duke's Charger are car show staples.
purplezooey 7y ago
This is like predicting peak real estate. Often predicted, never comes true. Nothing has changed that would affect US demand for cars. Public transit is even more underfunded. Commutes are lengthening, not shortening.
aiyodev 7y ago
> The most dramatic example of just how vulnerable automakers are came from Britain last week. The country prides itself on being the Detroit of Europe. Now I understand Brexit. Good job, Britain. You’ll soon look just like Detroit.
triplee 7y ago
I think this is another one of those massive divergences in culture coming to a head. In SOME places, people are driving less and need to drive less. In other places, both farther suburbs and smaller areas, cars are no less essential than they've always been. In some cases of aging infrastructure in terms of public transit for cities that have it, suburbs are getting even more car dependent in places where you could have once been fine on transit (looking at you crappy DC metro system combined with extra development in housing). Now, many of these places aren't dense enough for rideshare, scooters, or whatever else have you to be worth a damn. Alternately, in places like Phoenix, and loose cities with little transit, plenty of people still need cars, and rideshare just craps up the roads even more. Curious to see how this ends, because I don't think it will go well.

Finally. Let's start building again things designed for humans ?

clintonb 7y ago
Cars are designed for humans.
- ctidd 7y ago
  Cars are designed for humans, then infrastructure is designed for cars. That step of removal from being designed for humans conflicts with any idea that designing for cars is design for humans by proxy: disproportionately catering to automotive concerns has negative affects on humans relying on their infrastructure to facilitate other forms of transport, or otherwise to not excessively distort either the urban or natural environment they are members of.
- gullywhumper 7y ago
  Only if you’re in one - otherwise that oversized pickup is designed to just plow on through puny humans in their path -crosswalks and bike lanes are no match!
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Trouble is everything around them is designed for cars. Shopping and other amenities get spaced out too far, residential areas are bisected and cut off by unfriendly, loud and smelly tarmac rivers. Acres of space are given to resting, care and feeding of cars. They get special places to gather: the out of town shopping centre. They get priority over other forms of transport in most places. The humans come next. We should design residential areas, cities, shopping and communities for people first once again. Then we wouldn't need to think about a car as often.
noobermin 7y ago
If you look at autofatalities (including of pedestrians and cyclists), share of public transit and bike usage, and other such related statistics over time, they closely track the cost of gas. Ironically, of course, production of new cars doesn't neccessarily mean less car usage over the <10 year term (since cars don't magically burn up), but it may mean good news for those who want to wean their cities off of cars.
- shdh 7y ago
  > ...they closely track the cost of gas. Could you post a source backing your claim?

Seeing Tesla hit 50B but GM be around 60B makes me wonder if auto is under valued. Transportation is boring but necessary. These companies also have plenty of experience and infrastructure. Sales are marketing based.

endorphone 7y ago
Enterprise Value (EV) is a far better representation of the value of companies, considering that both shareholders and debt-holders have a stake in the company. Tesla has an EV of $43B. GM has an EV of $135B.
- dd36 7y ago
  Yes, GM and F have a lot of debt.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
chrisseaton 7y ago
> if auto is under valued What does 'auto' mean in this context?
- neppo 7y ago
  the automotive market
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    Do you mean cars?
Edmond 7y ago
I think it is more likely that Telsa is simply grossly over valued, even with the recent collapse of its market value. I used to be quite bullish on Telsa...until I bought a 2019 Mazda 3 this past weekend. It is basically a Telsa that cost me $25K...Prior to this weekend I drove a Mazda 6 that I bought in 2006. While car shopping I came to realize that most of the things that made Telsa exciting are rapidly being integrated into standard consumer vehicles. With Elon's seeming unsuitability for the role of car company CEO and if it is the case that Telsa doesn't have much of an edge over the competition, it is hard to see Telsa pulling through in the long haul.

mmcru 7y ago

The sense of security that comes with keeping a gassed (or charged) vehicle in my driveway doesn't seem like it will go away any time soon. If a family member needs to go to the emergency room, or a natural disaster strikes, Uber isn't going to cut it.

inawarminister 7y ago
If natural disasters strike, is it possible for you to bug out without getting stuck with thousands or hundreds of thousands other car users as well? Just asking, because a backup secondary route either on foot or smaller off-road vehicles (motorbikes or just regular bikes) might be prudent for planning. But yeah, many time-sensitive events are able to be easily solved with our own cars. There's a flexibility that is absent when relying on public transit and ride-sharing. Does it worth the trade-off of maintaining your own vehicle and it's attendant issues? In my opinion, it is. For some others, it isn't. It would be better if cars can become a non-essential for everyone in the world though, or at least the urbanites. Less traffic jams for the rest of us.
- shrimp_emoji 7y ago
  https://imgur.com/fLNs3k0 https://imgur.com/fLNs3k0 Have you ever considered how trains are our best implementation of the abstract idea of efficient, terrestrial mass transit?
ip26 7y ago
However, you can obtain that security without one and a half cars per adult in the family. If you can figure out how to bike, walk, or bus most of the time and your significant other can too, you get nearly all of that security with one vehicle per family and a lot of money to put towards other things.
XorNot 7y ago
That car doesn't need to be replaced every 3 years though, especially if new features aren't being added.

Animats 7y ago

Well, yes. Most of the developed world hit "peak baby" a while back. We're going to see a lot of "peak ..." over the next decade or so.

HillaryBriss 7y ago
please allow me to vote here for the "peak Amazon" prediction
noobermin 7y ago
If you're assuming it is a global maximum sure your sentiment is right. The key is in the word global, where the domain is the history of mankind and its entire future.

newnewpdro 7y ago

> Why would you, when it's cheaper to ride around in someone else's? As if there's zero risk associated in getting into someone else's car... Not to mention any vehicle I willfully own will never barrage me with advertisements or surveil my movements. Uber is burning billions of dollars in an attempt to corner the market. When/If they succeed, do you really think they won't put the screws to the customers living in circumstances where car ownership has likely become all but impossible? The prices will shoot up, the monetization of the personal data will increase, the in-vehicle advertising will increase, the whole experience will become worse than what the end-game of yellow cabs looked like. I fully expect the self-driving Ubers of the future to partner with the police in arresting people. You get in the car you ordered, it knows your identity, it reports all rides to the police system, if a boolean comes back true, the doors lock and it drives you to the jail entrance for processing. It's just another revenue stream.

clintonb 7y ago
> I fully expect the self-driving Ubers of the future to partner with the police in arresting people. What!? I'm not following your logic. If there is a warrant for your arrest, and law enforcement is tracking your phone, law enforcement can simply come pick you up in a squad car.
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  What do you think is more cost effective? Do you actually think there are sufficient LEOs to run around chasing phones for every petty outstanding warrant? Why bother even trying when they can just be delivered by a robot.
  - redbluegreen 7y ago
    Not only this but Uber even give you the passenger's destination, tracking a phone doesn't give you that.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >Do you actually think there are sufficient LEOs to run around chasing phones for every petty outstanding warrant. Cities are ringed with rich suburbs with overstaffed police departments full of bored cops. I can see them being very interested in a product that scrapes cell subscriber and location data to ID people with outstanding warrants. I fully agree with you that there's aren't sufficient resources to track down every deadbeat that failed to show up in court, or accumulated too many parking tickets or whatever. However, things that make it easier and cheaper to find people do not bode well for free society. Think about the kind of sigint that went into catching Bin Laden. Now imagine a world where 99% of that is automated and the police feel it's reasonable to use it to catch petty thieves.

rdm_blackhole 7y ago

I am not surprised honestly. Cars are a money pit. They cost a lot to run and a lot to buy and depreciate in value. Take for example our car: - we bought a used 2007 Yaris 3 years ago for AUD$ 6K. - every year we have to pay a registration fee in Australia which is AUD$ 650. - insurance is $AUD 200 per year - car service every 6 months is AUD$ 330. - random repairs in the last 3 years: AUD$ 700 - Petrol cost is AUD $60 every second month on average. We only use the car on the weekend to go to the beach 1h30 hours away, to buy groceries and visit my wife's family 600 km from where we live twice a year. The total cost of ownership: AUD$ 12310 The car is probably worth AUD$ 4.5k now and we only drove 35k km in the last 3 years as we use public transports a lot. The only reason that we have kept it around is for the what ifs. I am starting to think that this is probably the last car that we will own.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
That insurance of $200/year (AUD, let alone USD) sounds super cheap. Also $1.5k deprivation for 3 years of use sounds super good as well. Is car ownership in Australia really that cheap? I drive even less than you do (6k for around 3 years), and bought new as well, but find the car super useful because of our toddler, Uber simply doesn’t do car seats well and the bus doesn’t go to the pediatrician.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- samplatt 7y ago
  His car is a Yaris, one of the smallest Toyotas (comparatively) that have ever been made, and Australia scales registration to size/purpose of the vehicle. Larger SUV's or 4WD's have anything in the $300-$600 yearly registration fee, ~1500-2k for yearly insurance, and a LOT more on fuel.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    More specifically, Australian vehicle registration fees, in the three states I've owned vehicles, are based on the number of cylinders and whether the vehicle is used for commercial or private use.

analog31 7y ago

>>>> But that's not all. As on-demand services like Uber and Lyft grow their customer bases, more people will decide they no longer need to own a car of their own. Why would you, when it's cheaper to ride around in someone else's? Hopefully Lyft and Uber are stepping stones, but at the present moment, both of them depend on someone having bought a personal car at some point. I haven't used them very much yet (my bike is one reason, being a double bassist is another) but from what I can tell, nobody buys a new car to drive Lyft/Uber, and it wouldn't make financial sense. I've noticed a definite culture shift regarding our relationship with cars. My generation: Every kid arranged their affairs so they could get their drivers license on their 16th birthday, and worked a job so they could have a car. My kids and their friends are ambivalent about cars and driving. When they finish college, taking on a car payment will be the last thing on their minds.

cududa 7y ago
The funniest thing I heard, which totally makes sense, was from my 16 year old cousin. Apparently it’s common to sneak out, walk a few blocks and take an Uber to a house party!

chank 7y ago

RE: As on-demand services like Uber and Lyft grow their customer bases, more people will decide they no longer need to own a car of their own. Is it really more expensive to own than use a ride share service? Seems to only be reasonable when you have a monthly payment and even then depending on how much that payment is and how much you go out; it still may be less expensive to have your own. I own my car outright. Calculated, it costs me roughly ~2500 a year to keep it, baring any catastrophe. Thats Insurance, gas, maintenance, inspection, registration, and a few hundred on top for surprise road trips. On the other hand to take an uber/lyft "only" to-and-from work each weekday would cost me ~6000 per year (ride + tip using the cheapest option). Add on for any additional activities and it goes up considerably from there. Don't get me wrong, I would love to not have to own a car, but it really is cheaper and more convenient for me to do so. I live in a major US city.

albertshin 7y ago
Yes. There's convenience in not having to find / pay / be restricted by parking.
microtherion 7y ago
> I own my car outright. Calculated, it costs me roughly ~2500 a year to keep it, Does that include depreciation? Even if you own the car outright, it seems to me that a proper cost accounting should include the cost of eventual replacement of the car. > On the other hand to take an uber/lyft "only" to-and-from work each weekday Yes, I think if your daily commute depends on a car, ownership is the most cost effective model. But an increasing number of people are finding ways to commute in other ways.
- xur17 7y ago
  > Does that include depreciation? Even if you own the car outright, it seems to me that a proper cost accounting should include the cost of eventual replacement of the car. I did a similar calculation and found it cost me ~$2k, and this includes depreciation, car insurance, opportunity cost (funds would be invested @ ~8% return if they weren't locked in a car - this accounted for ~40% of the cost), registration, regular repairs, and depreciation. If you have to pay for parking and tickets, this math changes pretty dramatically.

lawrenceg 7y ago

I believe it is more a matter of affordability than anything else and it only applies to people living in or around the downtown core of major cities in NA. Unless one of the on-demand ride sharing services, gets some kind of membership going, that would be cheaper monthly than owning a car outright, I don't see it. Most people need the convenience of owning a vehicle and having it available 24/7. I do see more services like Turo helping with reducing the financial burden of car ownership though.

hossbeast 7y ago
Then how else do you explain the data presented in the piece?

mrunkel 7y ago

The problem with cars is that they are great for individuals, but terrible for society. For individuals, they greatly increase your mobility and open new possibilities. For societies, they are loud, dirty, dangerous, and require expensive roads which take up large swaths of land. It is this dichotomy that prevents us as humans from properly understanding the cost of the vehicles we drive. I see all over this thread people calculating the cost of their vehicle in dollars, but this grossly underestimates the cost to society as a whole. In regards to the article, how much visibility do western analysts have into the Chinese automotive market? If domestic sales aren’t accurately monitored, this would explain why the Chinese market has dropped.

1123581321 7y ago
Society also benefits from individuals having increased mobility and the options that brings.
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  Well obviously, as societal utility is the aggregate of individual utility. The point was about the parts of the utility (or disutility) equations that are hidden from individuals.
Sharlin 7y ago
Cars are a textbook example of the tragedy of the commons. Everybody would personally benefit if everyone else drove less, as long as they themselves can keep driving. Capitalism is exceedingly poor at accounting for negative externalities, and many armchair economists don't seem to even acknowledge negative externalities exist because they are a "hidden" cost not determined by the market and paid by third parties. Any economist worth their salt, of course, says that as a mechanism created specifically to solve coordination problems like this, it's the government's job to put a real price on negative externalities.
hedora 7y ago
Trains, electric scooters (think Vespa, not Lime) and electric rickshaws are all extremely popular in China. If we changed traffic laws (and automotive subsidies) in the US to make them more feasible in cities, I imagine small electric vehicles would take a huge dent out of the automotive industry here.

rossdavidh 7y ago

I totally believe that many people no longer are enamored of owning a car. I do not believe Uber/Lyft/etc. will be the cause of "peak car". For one thing, given their cash burn rate, I don't believe that Uber/Lyft/etc. will be around in 5 years, at least in their current form. They will either merge with a conventional cab company, fold entirely, or massively downsize.

Alex3917 7y ago
I think Uber / Lyft can mostly replace cars for people who don't have unusual hobbies. It's relatively easy to find a place to live where you can use public transportation to get to work, and it's relatively easy to use public transportation or car sharing / rental to visit friends and family or go away for the weekend. But if you live in NYC and your hobby is gold prospecting or something then that model breaks down really fast.

11thEarlOfMar 7y ago

Another factor to watch as this plays out is that electric cars have the potential of a 50 year useful life. The drive train of some makes is purported to be 500,000 in the current shipping battery technology and advances are expected to take that to 1,000,000 miles on the drive train. Compare that to ICE cars that wear out pretty reliably in the 200,000 - 250,000 range. For a typical US buyer who drives 12,500 miles per year, 1,000,000 means they can drive the car for 80 years. They could skip buying the next 4 cars.

ghostcluster 7y ago
The problem with this is that the most expensive component of electric cars: the batteries, have a ridiculously short lifespan, and they become less and less powerful with every recharge
- acdha 7y ago
  Are cars really built to make them impossible to replace? I had been under the impression that multiple companies were working on the replace & reclaim model.
- Brakenshire 7y ago
  Old electric cars that had to push the envelope of the usage margins of their batteries were bad, but Tesla batteries show minimal degradation on average. If you stay within safety margins and within temperature ranges batteries go on for a long time. The higher the range of the battery, the more luxury you have to stay within a safety margin, and proper thermal management is becoming standard even at the lower end of the market.
- Alex3917 7y ago
  The lifespan of car batteries is 15 - 20 years, and they only cost a few thousand bucks to replace.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    The cost of replacing Prius batteries was a big concern ten years ago. Seems less of a concern today. As in no one talks about ti anymore. Probably because it takes a mechanic half an afternoon to do. And the cost of the batteries has come down. With the new generation of electric cars the cost of replacing the battery isn't what it would cost today, but what it will cost in 15 years. Probably will be reasonably cheap.

RickJWagner 7y ago

"Honda said it would close its factory in Swindon, England" Exceptionally sad news for car nuts like myself. Swindon is the birthplace of the magnificent Honda 2.0 turbo powering the Civic Type R. BTW, I love the pics that accompany the article. Starsky and Hutch's Torino, the Duke's Charger are car show staples.

purplezooey 7y ago

This is like predicting peak real estate. Often predicted, never comes true. Nothing has changed that would affect US demand for cars. Public transit is even more underfunded. Commutes are lengthening, not shortening.

aiyodev 7y ago

> The most dramatic example of just how vulnerable automakers are came from Britain last week. The country prides itself on being the Detroit of Europe. Now I understand Brexit. Good job, Britain. You’ll soon look just like Detroit.

triplee 7y ago

I think this is another one of those massive divergences in culture coming to a head. In SOME places, people are driving less and need to drive less. In other places, both farther suburbs and smaller areas, cars are no less essential than they've always been. In some cases of aging infrastructure in terms of public transit for cities that have it, suburbs are getting even more car dependent in places where you could have once been fine on transit (looking at you crappy DC metro system combined with extra development in housing). Now, many of these places aren't dense enough for rideshare, scooters, or whatever else have you to be worth a damn. Alternately, in places like Phoenix, and loose cities with little transit, plenty of people still need cars, and rideshare just craps up the roads even more. Curious to see how this ends, because I don't think it will go well.