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Analysts are making a bold prediction that we are in the “endgame for cars,” as they are closely watching the “Retail Apocalypse” amid declining auto sales the view as signs of the “Carpocalypse.”
Auto sales in the United States and around the world are in decline.
In the UK, the country saw its eighth successive month of decline, with car sales for January down by 18.2 percent. Automobile sales in Turkey are down by 60%. Europe is seeing a 6% decline in auto sales.
Another barometer of declining vehicle production is tire sales, and China, one of the largest producers of tires, has seen numbers fall there by 5%.
Car registrations in the United States have declined by about 10% in the past two years.
Services such as Uber and Lyft are bringing reliable and affordable transportation that, for younger people especially, provides an alternative to car ownership.
Car ownership is more than just the price of a car. There’s insurance, registration, smog checks, maintenance and repairs, fuel, parking and storage.
From another perspective, it could be successfully argued that automobile ownership creates inequality. Consider that the average new vehicle now retails around $33,000. This is a price tag most American households cannot afford.
Lyft filed for an IPO last week and what their papers contained is very revealing about the company’s motives.
“We believe that the world is at the beginning of a shift away from car ownership to Transportation-as-a-Service, or TaaS. Lyft is at the forefront of this massive societal change,” Lyft founders Logan Green and John Zimmer told investors in their S-1 filing.
“We estimate over 300,000 Lyft riders have given up their personal cars because of Lyft,” the founders added.
“On a per household basis, the average annual spend on transportation is over $9,500, with the substantial majority spent on car ownership and operation,” they continued, pointing out the economic strain of automobile ownership.
“Car ownership has … economically burdened consumers. US households spend more on transportation than on any expenditure other than housing,” Lyft’s founders wrote.
