America's love affair with cars stalls as car sales slump to record low

[StarfarerBill]

By Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, GuardianUK

America's love affair with the automobile could be sputtering to an end. Some 14m cars were taken out of action in 2009, 4m more than rolled off the assembly lines and onto the roads, a report from the Earth Policy Institute said today.

It was the first time more cars were scrapped than sold since the second world war, reducing the size of the US car fleet from an all-time high of 250m to 246m.

Last year was an extraordinarily bad year for the US auto industry. Two of the three big car makers — GM and Chrysler — went through bankruptcy and were bailed out by the US government. Sales fell 21.2% from 2008 and the total sales volume was the lowest since 1982. Many consumers held off buying new cars because of fears of losing their jobs.

The Obama administration's efforts to spur demand by offering motorists up to $4,500 on trade-ins of older cars and pick-up trucks saw 700,000 older models taken off the road. But that did not affect the total number of vehicles on the road because consumers could only take advantage of the scrappage scheme if they replaced their old clunkers with new more efficient vehicles.

Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, said the slump in car sales goes beyond the economic recession. Americans may finally have decided that — with cars — enough is enough. The country now has 246m licensed cars for 209m licensed drivers.

"This is not a one-time event. We expect the shrinkage to continue into the indefinite future," Brown told a conference call today.

He predicted the US car fleet would shrink by 10% by 2020. He said he believed that America had reached the saturation point for cars. Japan recorded a similar milestone in 1990, and its fleet has declined by 21% since then.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/06/us-cars-sales-record-low

[madrchsod]

1. really? i love to have a new car but...no money!

there`s going to be a natural fall off in car purchases because us baby boomer's will stop driving. to think people have ended their love fair with cars is a bit premature

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. 'more cars were scrapped than sold' Amazing

[DJ13]

3. No jobs, no cars

No good paying jobs, and even those WITH jobs buy used or base models.

This is the America the greedy Wall Street fuckers wanted, they had better understand that means they themselves will soon have to lower their personal expectations like the rest of us.

[happyslug]

4. I compare riding to work on a bicycle 30 years ago with today and it is huge difference

My father worked downtown Pittsburgh and while he took the Streetcar (we lived on the last Streetcar line in Pittsburgh) he know of one person who rode a bicycle to downtown Pittsburgh instead of driving a car (or taking public transportation). That was an exception to the norm. When I was in Law School and rode a bike on most days (and sometimes walked to school) I rarely saw anyone else riding a bike. I did see other bikes locked up, but just 2-3 and then only on warm sunny days. Most people had cars and drove them. Recently I had to drive through the Oakland section of Pittsburgh and saw an immense increase in the number of students riding bicycles. I had to go downtown Pittsburgh last summer and could not believe the number of bicycle parked in a bicycle (had to be about 30-40 just outside one building, it was the building with the most bicycles but I saw a huge amount of bikes elsewhere in Downtown Pittsburgh).

These are adults, not teenagers but adults who have access to cars. This is a huge difference. I do not know how many are riding during the recent cold wave (I have been, but then I have studded tires for my Bike) but the number is way more then it was 20 years ago when I was in Law School (and way more then 30 years ago when my Father delivered mail in downtown Pittsburgh).

Just an observation that they is a lot more people with options other then driving a car to work every day and people are making that choice more and more as time goes on.