Gen Z is choosing not to drive

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 171 points – Gen Z is choosing not to drive
newsweek.com

Gen Z is choosing not to drive::Less Gen Z Americans own a driver's license than previous generations, according to consulting firm McKinsey.

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Are they choosing, or can't they afford to own a car with insurance and petrol costs going through the roof?

It may be a choice for many. I only got a car recently at age 26, even though I could always afford one (or ask my parents at an earlier age). There's also a decline in driver's licenses and the desire to have/drive/maintain a vehicle. Frankly, I'm not sure I'd have one myself if public transportation and sidewalks were reliable in my area.

Yea. I think there’s genuine generational shift here. Which in many ways makes sense. I never heard a negative word from my elders/parents about cars, while I and many of my friends and partners have had one and arrived at fairly critical to down right negative views about cars and driving.

Why it would be generational strikes me again as fairly obvious.

Traffic congestion has only gotten worse over time. The freedom machine ideal of the car has therefore very much faded. And things like traffic jams and the general stress of driving and parking etc are the sorts of thing that are hard to unsee once you’ve seen them. The damage they do in destroying or preventing pedestrian friendly areas is similar. The whole climate thing shifts the value proposal again.

And then there’s the pure generational factor too. Cars are relatively new. It makes sense that they’ve been on some hype curve this whole time, peaking with the boomers. Now it feels obvious we’ve overdone it and relied on them too much. Watching plenty of cars scramble to find a car park or get stuck in traffic, each bearing a single driver/passenger while taking up 5-10 square meters … again hard to unsee.

Once you’ve seen or even lived a life without all that noise, they’re no longer the must haves they were for the past decades.

This also depends on where you live, I'm gen z and I have a license (no car tho, saving money for it) but since I don't live in a big city a car's still important to get around (there is a mediumish-sized city ~15 min drive away, but I'm in australia so everything's real spread out)

Oh for sure. The ideal type curve settles at an appropriate level of usage, and spread out and small towns make sense for cars. Though there is the related view of lower density versus higher density living. Either way though there will be variation and the question is whether the emphasis is well measured.

Yep. My parents offered to buy my gen Z brother a car, and he asked for an e-bike instead. I (a millenial) also choose to not have a car for both environmental reasons and just... not wanting to drive and deal with traffic and car maintenance and whatnot. Thankfully we live in a city whose public transportation's getting better by day.

My partner and I live in Silicon Valley and it's cheaper for us to rent a car when we need it than to own one. We'd use it maybe twice a month so rentals just make more sense. We're moving to San Francisco soon though and at that point we'll likely never own a car and just transit everywhere.

Definitely a choice, and if transit was more viable without it being stuck in the same car traffic I am sure more people would make the switch.

This is my exact first thought when I read this headline

Or younger people just have a generally negative view towards cars as a primary mode of transport. I realized that ever since I moved to a city, I haven't needed a car and cars just make cities worse. I can really afford a really nice car, but I have no need for one.

The article's metric seems to be whether or not they own a driver's license, not a car. So whether or not they can afford to own a car isn't really a part of this article's dataset, although they do touch on why they don't own a car in the article as well.

Well, probably a bit of both. For many people, a car isn't a necessity, so they can choose to not afford it...

My son is getting gifted an electric car from a family friend.

He still doesn't really give a shit about getting a license, it's crazy to me.

I think there's also the issue of where do kids have to go hang out anymore?

By and large, malls are dead/dying, and some don't even allow unsupervised kids anymore.

Movies are expensive. Restaurants are expensive. Concerts are expensive (if you're lucky enough to live somewhere with easy access to concert venues, if you're in the suburbs you probably have an uphill battle trying to convince your parents to let you go wandering around the city unsupervised to go to a concert) Arcades basically don't even exist anymore.

They can barely even go hang out in a park without being harassed by some Karen or the cops, and of course parks usually close at dusk and kind of depend on the weather being decent so in many places there's a good chunk of the year where parks are undesirable.

You can hang out at your friends' houses, but depending on your area there's a decent chance that they may be in walking or biking distance so no need for a car, and if you're just going to be hanging around the house, not a big deal for Mom or Dad to drop you off/pick you up, not like you're going to really need a car while you're there, you got nowhere to go anyway. And of course we get some parents these days who are really weird about their kids going over to other people's homes, which leaves staying home and hanging out online.

About the only thing I can think of that I used to do as a kid that might still be accessible for kids and might necessitate them having their own car is to go hang out at the local comic/game shop to play magic, d&d, etc. Because most of them are pretty cool about people just coming to hang out, but even that could really be a "hey parental unit, can I get a ride?" kind of thing.

Plus, if you have a tight group of friends you always hang out with, you may only need a couple drivers. Even going back to when I was a teen/young adult, a lot of my friends didn't have a license and many of them who did didn't have their own car or couldn't count on borrowing their parents' car. I know the core group I hung out with was probably around 6-10 people, and one other guy and I did 99% of our driving whenever we went to do something because we were the ones with cars. Probably up until I was about 23 I spent a lot of time picking friends up and giving them rides places because I had a car and they didn't.

At best maybe going to clubs.

But yeah. All points you mentioned are out the window in today times.

I've heard this called "the death of the third place". The first place is home, the second place is work, the third place is everything else. It used to be that people could hang out at bars, malls, bowling alleys, etc. for not astronomical prices. It's gotten too expensive to be out.

the insane part is this family friend willing to give ur son a car he doesn't want.

I can’t afford one, but I also just don’t want to. I get groceries delivered and can Uber around. I just don’t travel all that much.

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They're choosing not to drive for the same reason they're choosing to be more thrifty, choosing not to go to college, choosing to live with their parents longer, and choosing not to buy homes. See if you can find the common denominator.

idk, I have a car and a job that pays well enough that I don't feel right for gas money and such, but I'll still walk/public transit/bike when it's not terribly inconvenient and I feel like a lot of my same generation coworkers feel the same way.

sure money might be part of it for some, but definitely not the driving force in my circles

It's all a choice it seems. Damn these newer generations and their freedom of choosing the things that the older generations deemed great and easy to attain, the mindset of lazyness has encroached on the mind of the young ones through this TikTok and other electronic devices, poisoning their free will and corrupting their mind. Nobody thinks for themselves anymore these days.

Ah yes, that's the problem.

Of course, what other problem could it be? If only they choose to make other choices... I can't stop shaking my head in disappointment

Just like they're "choosing" not to own houses either I guess

If you work hard and save up, you could live in a nice van down by the river!

The unit of measure in this article is whether or not they have a driver's licence, not a car...I'm pretty sure even gen Zers can afford a driver's license, if they actually wanted it. Not having a driver's licence is very much a choice, to a much higher degree than owner a car (or house)

In places like Finland it costs over a thousand euros to get your driver's license. That's less than a car obviously but not nothing either

Yeah it costs around 2k Euros where I live, which is enough to also buy a small beater...but this article is US-focused only, and it's significantly cheaper to get a licence in the US, hence my comment.

That still sounds on the cheap side for Europe, in some countries you'll easily have spent north of 2k€ on all the mandatory lessons and exams, or even more if you're a slow learner or fail the tests a few times.

It costs about 400K to 500K where I live to buy a house that used to be around 150K 30 years ago. Times are fucked

I assume lots of Gen Z can only afford like 2 liters of gas anyways let alone a car...

Try living in Singapore, where it now costs SGD146,000 (USD106,000) just to have the right to own a car for ten years (a Certificate of Entitlement).

To be clear, that fee doesn’t actually buy you a car, it’s simply the cost of being allowed to own a car. For ten whole years, then you need to buy another one.

“A new standard Toyota Camry Hybrid costs around S$250,000 [~USD186,500] in Singapore, which includes the cost of a COE and taxes. That is about six times more expensive than in the US.”

It’s certainly one way to encourage the public to use mass transit (which is pretty good, luckily!).

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67014420

Singapour is also a country reduced to a city, so that certainly makes transportation easier. The US is on the opposite of the spectrum.

But are you really going to claim that a lot of people are commuting from New york to San Francisco daily (or even across one state?)

Singapore is just as big as NYC, and almost as dense. Cross border commuters from Malaysia do exist but are not the norm because it's a big pain.

Also what's true is Singapore might be true in NYC but NYC is not the norm in US, it's the exception.

It's still ridiculuous how car industry friendly zoning laws implemented in the U.S.A are hurting the citizens but people genuinely argue that it's good being stuck in their cars alone for 2 to 3 hours a day.

All the articles have been written on millennial's so now they're going to sub in Gen Z.

Because these days there's a dialogue about whether driving is economically worthwhile, moral, or even fun. There used to be no talk about that, and so the only question was whether you could afford a beater or a status symbol.

40 and I move by electric longboard. Fuck cars.

On other news: disabled people are choosing not to walk.

Car ownership is more expensive than it used to be + a greater proportion of young people live in cities than they used to.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

"Maybe they don't want to drive because they're looking for a sustainable option, such as public transportation, ride-sharing, or e-scooters," McKinsey analysts wrote.

"It's also possible that a sputtering economy and inflation tinged their entry into adulthood, discouraging spending on big-ticket items such as cars," McKinsey said.

But McKinsey analysts point out that previous generations of Americans had also appeared less interested in driving but went behind the wheel of cars eventually.

"It's too early to tell whether the no-driving trend will hold with Gen Z, especially given the changes happening in the mobility and automotive markets," McKinsey analysts pointed out.

The automotive industry is changing with the mainstreaming of the so-called shared mobility market, which includes car ride-sharing, scooters, and in the future, self-driving automobiles.

"And for those Gen Zers who decide that driving just isn't for them, they can keep themselves busy with TikTok in the passenger seat—or get behind the wheel in the metaverse."

The original article contains 459 words, the summary contains 157 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Eye I have two really nice cars and I only ever take them out on tracks or going around the county side. Otherwise I to am taking the bike everywhere. Even if it means going through a hard ass mountain range. I honestly get it. Cars are expensive and if the only place you get to drive it on are highways and cities yea cars are pretty boring and frustrating. You really need a good mountain range or track to appreciate cars, and sadly those are becoming rarer and rarer for people and especially young folks. So thanks car sentric infrastructure for making cars boring and infuriating.

My family keeps pressuring me to learn how to drive. I still say no, and will keep doing so for the rest of my life basically. I seriously do not wanna contribute to pollution and congestion.

In my country you're expected to know how to drive as early as 15, way before you even get your permit. I say fuck that.

Another gen-z here, yeah I have no interest in something that requires me to pay insurance even if I'm not using it when my ebike gets me everywhere I need to go. Not to mention having way less potential to hurt someone else because of a lapse of attention on the roads. Add on the health and environmental benefits and that I don't pay for electricity in my house so it's free to fuel.

Lots of these comments feel out of touch or just in touch with their own ideals a little too much.

Car insurance is getting super expensive even more so for younger folks. My renewal came in with GEICO and they raised my 6mo premium from $2500 to $3300. So I got a bunch of quotes from different companies all of them were around $3500-$4000 matching the same coverage. It's insane.

I'm in my 40's and only got my license 5 years ago. As well as environmental and economic reasons a big part of my refusal was power. A drivers license is the main way the state exerts power over the people. You should see a cops face when you tell them you don't have a drivers license, they lose their biggest threat against you. In the end I had to drive for work and I try to avoid doing so at all costs.

What can a cop do about your driving license if you're not driving when he talks to you?

Do you not have ID cards in your country? In Canada we have ID cards and drivers licenses that are exactly the same minus one letting you drive

I'm Canadian and had a BYID card issued by the LCBO. But the police can't threaten to take it away from you as a means of control.

I had no idea BYID cards were a thing. That's interesting though

Almost no one did. They stopped the age of majority card at the time and there wasn't any replacement so they made that. It only lasted a few years. It was a really fake looking and I got a lot of doubting looks from bouncers and bankers and such. It took a force of will to get it accepted sometimes.

Now you can get a the same card as a drivers license but it's a different colour I think.

My first car cost $900 in the 90's. It was a '91 bronco 2 that had the driver's-side door replaced and spray painted the approximate colors of the rest of the car. Bought it from some dude selling it along the road. My theory is that gen z'ers are just too picky to live like we did "back in the day" so they say they can't afford things like cars when the real problem is that they can't afford the cars they WANT

Nobody today is selling a 9 year old car for $900 or the inflation equivalent unless it was turned into a cube at the scrap yard.

Cars are on average more expensive today, new or used. Gas is more expensive, and it's likely more expensive to insure a young driver, which has always been expensive.

If they choose "don't drive" over "pour much of what little money I have into propping up a falling apart beater," that's still a choice. Why rag on them for it?

Nobody today is selling a 9 year old car for $900 or the inflation equivalent unless it was turned into a cube at the scrap yard.

That's a bit under $1800 by today's rates and a 30 second search turned this up: https://indianapolis.craigslist.org/ctd/d/indianapolis-2006-ford-f150/7709051628.html

Cars are on average more expensive today, new or used. Gas is more expensive, and it's likely more expensive to insure a young driver, which has always been expensive.

Put in the effort and you can find a good deal. I've done it before and I'll do it again. Buying a new car is a scam, found that one out myself too. I also pay for the same gas and insurance so that's moot

If they choose "don't drive" over "pour much of what little money I have into propping up a falling apart beater," that's still a choice. Why rag on them for it?

Not ragging on the choice, I'm ragging on the rationale. "EverYtHinG iS sO 'sPensive" is just "I don't want to be seen driving/living in/wearing that" in disguise. There are cheaper choices or ones that are more effort, but they are there.

I do get that prices are way out of control but I just saw a sign at McDonald's for a starting wage of $15/hr. When I worked there, I made $4.25/hr which would be about $9/hr today. I bought my car to start working there so this shit is not impossible today.

Bring the downvotes z'ers, the truth hurts

So in the 90s you bought a couple of years old at most 9 years old, and your comparison is buying a car now in 2024 that is 18 years old, for twice what you bought your car in the 90s.

"Less Gen Z Americans own a driver's license than previous generations"

This isn't about cars they want.