Is Digital Revolution Driving Decline in U.S. Car Culture?
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The internet has wreaked havoc on the music industry, airlines and media, but it just may be doing the same thing to automobiles.
It's a rarely acknowledged transformational shift that's been going on under the noses of marketers for as long as 15 years: The automobile, once a rite of passage for American youth, is becoming less relevant to a growing number of people under 30. And that could have broad implications for marketers in industries far beyond insurance, gasoline and retail.
In 1978, nearly half of 16-year-olds and three-quarters of 17-year-olds in the U.S. had their driver's licenses, according to Department of Transportation data. By 2008, the most recent year data was available, only 31% of 16-year-olds and 49% of 17-year-olds had licenses, with the decline accelerating rapidly since 1998. Of course, many states have raised the minimum age for driver's licenses or tightened restrictions; still, the downward trend holds true for 18- and 19-year-olds as well (see chart) and those in their 20s.
It's not just new drivers driving less. The share of automobile miles driven by people aged 21 to 30 in the U.S. fell to 13.7% in 2009 from 18.3% in 2001 and 20.8% in 1995, according to data from the Federal Highway Administration's National Household Travel Survey released earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Census data show the proportion of people aged 21-30 increased from 13.3% to 13.9%, so 20-somethings actually went from driving a disproportionate amount of the nation's highway miles in 1995 to under-indexing for driving in 2009.
William Draves blames the internet. Mr. Draves, president of Lern, a consulting firm which focuses mainly on higher education, and co-author of "Nine Shift," maintains that the digital age is reshaping the U.S. and world early in this century, much like the automobile reshaped American life early in the last century.
His theory is that almost everything about digital media and technology makes cars less desirable or useful and public transportation a lot more relevant. Texting while driving is dangerous and increasingly illegal, as is watching mobile TV or working on your laptop. All, at least under favorable wireless circumstances, work fine on the train. The internet and mobile devices also have made telecommuting increasingly common, displacing both cars and public transit.
Blame environment
The environment is the reason Gen Y-ers most often give for wanting to drive less, Mr. Draves said. But he sees the fundamental economic transformation wrought by the internet (and, apparently on the internet; research firm J.D. Power & Associates found that Gen Y-ers don't talk about cars nearly as much as their elders in social media). This demographic will be working on "intangibles" in professional jobs, not on tangible things that require physical presence, Mr. Draves said. "Time becomes really valuable to them," he said. "You can work on a train. You can't work in a car. And the difference is two to three hours a day, or about 25% of one's productive time."
Ford Motor Co. sees the trend as well, which is why it has introduced features such as Sync in its cars. "I don't think the car symbolizes freedom to Gen Y to the extent it did baby boomers, or to a lesser extent, Gen X-ers," said Sheryl Connelly, global trends and futuring manager. "Part of it is that there are a lot more toys out there competing for the hard-earned dollars of older teens and young adults."
Digital technology "allows teens to transcend time and place," she said, "so they can feel connected to their friends virtually." New options like Zipcar also make it easier to do without permanent car ownership, she said.
Millennials "are an important customer to us," said Ford's Ms. Connelly. "But we also understand the context in which they use cars has changed. ... It has nothing to do with performance or getting you from point A to point B. It's just a change in what people expect to be delivered."
The economy, rather than any longer-term secular trend, has impacted driving and licensing among younger people, said Paul Taylor, chief economist with the National Automobile Dealers Association. Unemployment has led some younger consumers to drive less, and the cost of insuring a 16-to-19-year-old driver alone can discourage cash-strapped parents from allowing them to get licenses. State licensing requirements and restrictions by many high schools and colleges on driving are also a factor.
Mr. Draves, however, notes that the shift began well before the recession or the preceding run-up in gas prices. The real-estate markets most profoundly affected by the bursting housing bubble -- such as Las Vegas and other Sunbelt metro areas -- are boom towns built around highways with no substantial train transportation. Real-estate markets that have been less affected or quicker to recover include Boston and San Francisco, which have strong urban rail systems. In New Jersey, Connecticut, Boston, Denver and Chicago, housing prices near new or existing train stations have either been among the first to recover or have seen less depreciation during the bursting of the housing bubble.
In fact, Mr. Draves predicts a resurgence of urban living in denser housing surrounding train stations. As a result, suburban shopping malls and big-box stores such as Walmart, Target and club stores that rely on people hauling big purchases away in cars stand to suffer.
Before you scoff, consider Walmart. Few, if any, retailers are quite as dependent on the car. Walmart has yet to find a highly profitable small-store concept that fits densely packed urban areas; it's disproportionately strong in rural and suburban areas and has had trouble penetrating big cities with mass transit.
When gas prices dropped sharply in late 2007, Walmart started posting its best same-store sales results in years. The rebound in gas prices was just as tough on Walmart as the drop was favorable. The retailer's year-over-year customer traffic turned negative last year just as gas prices shot past their 2008 levels, U.S. Chief Operating Officer Bill Simon said in a March speech to analysts.
E-commerce wins
Gen Y's driving-behavior shift, however, won't just be about helping main streets return as big-box retailers fade, Mr. Draves said. E-commerce is likely to benefit, too, as categories at first resistant to e-commerce take another serious crack at it. Alice.com, which is providing the platform and fulfillment now for more than 60 mainly package-goods e-stores, is seeing a growing share of its business, which drew close to 700,000 visitors in April from Gen Y shoppers, according to Compete.com, said CEO Brian Wiegand.
"This new generation, their first thought is not 'let's drive to the store to get these things,'" he said, "but 'let's get them the easiest, fastest, cheapest way.' We call them internet-first people. We think that's an important segment for us, and it's also the biggest segment for our iPhone app, which is almost all Gen Y."
Of course, the trend is mainly bad news for an auto industry struggling to recover from its steepest downturn since the Great Depression. The combination of Millennials driving less and boomers retiring led Carlos Gomes, economist with ScotiaBank in Toronto, to issue a downbeat forecast for long-term vehicle sales in North America in February. He projects growth in U.S. new vehicle sales of only around 0.6% annually over the next decade, cutting nearly by half the 1.1% growth rate of the prior decade.
While the need to replace a fleet that averages 9.4 years old in the U.S. favors the auto industry short-term, demographics and driving trends argue against a robust recovery, he said. Citing his own teenage children and their friends in Toronto, Mr. Gomes said, "they just prefer taking the train."
But some argue it's not a permanent shift in preferences away from driving -- rather a shift toward driving later.
'Delayed, not denied'
Driving is more likely "delayed than denied," argued NADA's Mr. Taylor. "That age cohort may eventually get married and have children. Living near work is something you do when you're young and single, and when you start picking out schools and amenities you want for your children's development, people are less willing to live near the office."
According to DOT data, it costs $8,000 a year to operate a car based on the average 15,000 annual miles driven. In all, Americans spend $1 trillion to $2 trillion annually on automobiles, Mr. Draves said, including everything from the cars themselves to the roads they run on, the gas they need and the $100 billion spent insuring them.
The trend of Gen Y driving less is definitely on the radar of State Farm, said Tim Van Hoof, director-marketing communications at the No. 1 insurer, and it's changing how it goes to market. The company just launched a new campaign targeted at younger customers that "tries to start a broader conversation," about life, renters and homeowners policies, rather than just auto, he said. Of course, cars won't disappear, nor will the changes happen overnight. Mr. Draves predicts that by 2020, the combination of younger people driving less and boomers retiring will cut mileage driven in the U.S. by half.
Today, only 30 of the 100 metropolitan areas that account for three quarters of U.S. population have trains, but Mr. Draves said pressure is building to build more. Denver, Charlotte, N.C., and Portland, Ore., are among those with systems under development, and Cincinnati is debating the development of a streetcar system that would link its downtown with uptown neighborhoods increasingly popular with young professionals.
NADA's Mr. Taylor acknowledged that telecommuting is growing, but not as fast as pundits predicted five or 10 years ago. And while there is a train line being built in front of NADA' McLean, Va., offices, it's been a difficult process for which funding was tough, he said. "If job prospects improve," he said, "people will want the personal freedom and mobility that owning a car provides."
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Contributing: Jeremy Mullman
