This might be one case where a very long term look (43 years) is misleading. "Last 10 years" might be more instructive. Cars have gotten much better. Back in 1

This might be one case where a very long term look (43 years) is misleading. "Last 10 years" might be more instructive. Cars have gotten much better. Back in 1980 it was very unusual for a car to go 100,000 miles. This data suggests Newsweek has a non-story: the number of carless households has not gone up at all. https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/car-ownership-statistics/ https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/car-ownership-st... https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-transport-challenges/household-vehicles-united-states/ https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-trans... Perhaps a lot of car sales were actually additional cars for a household that already had one or more, and now that desire has been satiated.