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The real story my be that car sales may decline, gas or electric: * People drive less; I saw a study showing that significantly fewer millenials are licensed t

The real story my be that car sales may decline, gas or electric: * People drive less; I saw a study showing that significantly fewer millenials are licensed to drive than their predecessors. * More people live in cities, where the cost of cars is higher (insurance and parking) and the demand for them is less due to the proximity of destinations and the availability of alternatives (public transport, taxis, ride-sharing, car sharing, bicycling) * Energy costs likely will increase. * As awareness of climate change grows, people will be less willing to cause greenhouse gas emissions (and the energy in your electric car battery must come from somplace, probably a fossil-fuel in a power plant).

soperj 11y ago
At this point 33% of the USA's energy mix comes from a non-fossil fuel source(http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3 http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3), and the renewable % has been increasing every year.
beambot 11y ago
Another driver for fewer car sales: More ride-sharing and taxi (Uber) services obviating the need to purchase individual vehicles which see sub-5% utilization. This is good for the environment too.... IIRC, the embodied cost to fabricate a vehicle represents something like 30% of its net carbon cost. This is pretty significant when you consider the very low utilization rate for a capital asset.
- brc 11y ago
  This factor is often overstated - for a few reasons. Passenger miles are likely to go up, if anything, even if because more vacant miles are being driven to collect people, and also because making a service cheaper leads to higher consumption of that service. Passenger miles are what causes car sales - cars wear out. For cars which produce revenue then there comes a point where it's more economical to purchase a new one than to attend to medium-difficulty repairs. So I'm not convinced ride sharing or automated vehicles will lead to fewer cars sold. If anything I would say it has the potential to increase the number of cars sold.
  - eru 11y ago
    We will also see cars that last longer, since the initial capital investment into reliability will be recouped over more time driven. I wonder whether machine driving will lead to less wear and tear on cars.
bkjelden 11y ago
not sure if you meant "car miles" when you said sales, but another point: * Cars are way more reliable than even 10-15 years ago. Growing up my parents had a rule of thumb that a car was a ticking bomb over 100k miles. Today, a car from a reputable manufacturer is just getting started at 100k. I do think this has some interesting ramifications as the lifetime of a single car starts to increase - at a time when the tech in a car (e.g. driver assists/self-driving systems) is starting to iterate very rapidly.
protomyth 11y ago
if you go to https://www.nada.org/nadadata/ https://www.nada.org/nadadata/ and look at the table "New-vehicle sales and market share, by manufacturer", it gives the following stats: Year Total 2005 16,945,000 2006 16,502,700 2007 16,089,300 2008 13,194,600 2009 10,401,700 2010 11,554,100 2011 12,734,200 2012 14,440,060 2013 15,524,800 2014 16,437,000 So, I'm not sure that car sales will really decline. It should be noted that the data presented was the source data for the U.S. Census Bureau Statistical Abstract which was discontinued in 2012 because of budget cuts.
agumonkey 11y ago
No significant impact for remote working since the explosion of the web ? More than cars, some people are even going away from owning a house and just hop between countries, etc.
kailuowang 11y ago
You missed the most disruptive potential change that will decrease the number of cars needed: driverless cars. These cars can make car sharing so much easier and more efficient that the numbers of cars needed for getting people around will shrink dramatically. Imagine all the traffic during the work hours will be taken care of by the cars used to sitting in the parking for a whole 8 hours long. And all the house car sitting in the garage during the traffic hours taking care of the people going to and off work. I wouldn't be surprised if the total number of cars shrink to one third without anyone feel any inconvenient.
ghaff 11y ago
According to FiveThirtyEight, the urbanization trend is largely exaggerated. The more accurate statement is that college-educated millennials are somewhat more likely to live in a handful of particularly dense urban locations (think Brooklyn).[1] In fact, among all adults 25-34 the percentage in urban locations overall has actually declined. The data is a bit hard to interpret for a variety of reasons but the bottom line is that, according to this data: "Millennials overall, therefore, are not increasingly living in urban neighborhoods. Rather, the most educated one-third of young adults are increasingly likely to live in the densest urban neighborhoods. That’s great news for cities trying to attract young graduates and a sign that urban neighborhoods have become more desirable for those who can afford them. But the presence of more smart young things in Brooklyn is not evidence that millennials are a more urban generation." [1] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-less-urban-than-you-think/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-less...
- hackuser 11y ago
  Thanks; that's useful to know. I should point out that I wasn't only talking about millennials.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    The urbanization trend outside millennials is even less however.
- Symmetry 11y ago
  If we're talking about the market size for Tesla teh urbanization trend is not at all exaggerated. The US may not be doing much urbanization but the world overall certainly is.
ams6110 11y ago
Cars being expensive in cities is nothing new. Mass transit in cities is nothing new. Hard to say what energy prices will do but there's no clear trend[1]. Most people aren't really very worried about climate change[2]. [1] http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/images/charts/Oil/Inflation_Adj_Oil_Prices_Chart.htm http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/images/charts/Oil/Inflati... [2] http://www.gallup.com/poll/167843/climate-change-not-top-worry.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/167843/climate-change-not-top-wor...

soperj 11y ago

At this point 33% of the USA's energy mix comes from a non-fossil fuel source(http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3 http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3), and the renewable % has been increasing every year.

beambot 11y ago

Another driver for fewer car sales: More ride-sharing and taxi (Uber) services obviating the need to purchase individual vehicles which see sub-5% utilization. This is good for the environment too.... IIRC, the embodied cost to fabricate a vehicle represents something like 30% of its net carbon cost. This is pretty significant when you consider the very low utilization rate for a capital asset.

brc 11y ago
This factor is often overstated - for a few reasons. Passenger miles are likely to go up, if anything, even if because more vacant miles are being driven to collect people, and also because making a service cheaper leads to higher consumption of that service. Passenger miles are what causes car sales - cars wear out. For cars which produce revenue then there comes a point where it's more economical to purchase a new one than to attend to medium-difficulty repairs. So I'm not convinced ride sharing or automated vehicles will lead to fewer cars sold. If anything I would say it has the potential to increase the number of cars sold.
- eru 11y ago
  We will also see cars that last longer, since the initial capital investment into reliability will be recouped over more time driven. I wonder whether machine driving will lead to less wear and tear on cars.

bkjelden 11y ago

not sure if you meant "car miles" when you said sales, but another point: * Cars are way more reliable than even 10-15 years ago. Growing up my parents had a rule of thumb that a car was a ticking bomb over 100k miles. Today, a car from a reputable manufacturer is just getting started at 100k. I do think this has some interesting ramifications as the lifetime of a single car starts to increase - at a time when the tech in a car (e.g. driver assists/self-driving systems) is starting to iterate very rapidly.

protomyth 11y ago

if you go to https://www.nada.org/nadadata/ https://www.nada.org/nadadata/ and look at the table "New-vehicle sales and market share, by manufacturer", it gives the following stats: Year Total 2005 16,945,000 2006 16,502,700 2007 16,089,300 2008 13,194,600 2009 10,401,700 2010 11,554,100 2011 12,734,200 2012 14,440,060 2013 15,524,800 2014 16,437,000 So, I'm not sure that car sales will really decline. It should be noted that the data presented was the source data for the U.S. Census Bureau Statistical Abstract which was discontinued in 2012 because of budget cuts.

agumonkey 11y ago

No significant impact for remote working since the explosion of the web ? More than cars, some people are even going away from owning a house and just hop between countries, etc.

kailuowang 11y ago

You missed the most disruptive potential change that will decrease the number of cars needed: driverless cars. These cars can make car sharing so much easier and more efficient that the numbers of cars needed for getting people around will shrink dramatically. Imagine all the traffic during the work hours will be taken care of by the cars used to sitting in the parking for a whole 8 hours long. And all the house car sitting in the garage during the traffic hours taking care of the people going to and off work. I wouldn't be surprised if the total number of cars shrink to one third without anyone feel any inconvenient.

ghaff 11y ago

According to FiveThirtyEight, the urbanization trend is largely exaggerated. The more accurate statement is that college-educated millennials are somewhat more likely to live in a handful of particularly dense urban locations (think Brooklyn).[1] In fact, among all adults 25-34 the percentage in urban locations overall has actually declined. The data is a bit hard to interpret for a variety of reasons but the bottom line is that, according to this data: "Millennials overall, therefore, are not increasingly living in urban neighborhoods. Rather, the most educated one-third of young adults are increasingly likely to live in the densest urban neighborhoods. That’s great news for cities trying to attract young graduates and a sign that urban neighborhoods have become more desirable for those who can afford them. But the presence of more smart young things in Brooklyn is not evidence that millennials are a more urban generation." [1] http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-less-urban-than-you-think/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-millennials-are-less...

hackuser 11y ago
Thanks; that's useful to know. I should point out that I wasn't only talking about millennials.
- ghaff 11y ago
  The urbanization trend outside millennials is even less however.
Symmetry 11y ago
If we're talking about the market size for Tesla teh urbanization trend is not at all exaggerated. The US may not be doing much urbanization but the world overall certainly is.

ams6110 11y ago

Cars being expensive in cities is nothing new. Mass transit in cities is nothing new. Hard to say what energy prices will do but there's no clear trend[1]. Most people aren't really very worried about climate change[2]. [1] http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/images/charts/Oil/Inflation_Adj_Oil_Prices_Chart.htm http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/images/charts/Oil/Inflati... [2] http://www.gallup.com/poll/167843/climate-change-not-top-worry.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/167843/climate-change-not-top-wor...