jaunty75

Not exactly self-driving cars, but it's still moving away from the concept of not owning a vehicle. Not the same as leasing because you still keep the car with leasing, you pay for insurance, maintenance, registration, etc. Here, the car is brought to you when you need it. You still get to drive it, though.


http://www.vocativ.com/390466/car-ow...subscriptions/

sammy

So much for pride of ownership...

My nieces and nephews seem to fly everywhere...I can see them staring blankly at me when I ENTHUSIASTICALLY start rambling about cars to them...lol

jaunty75

There's other things that you can take pride in owning. A house. A boat. A nice set of clothes. A good job. Good health. People shouldn't need a car to validate themselves.

Human

As millennials increasingly eschew car ownership--and even driving--this seems like an inevitable next step. For today's teenagers, getting a driver's license just isn't the same coveted rite of passage that it was back when I was growing up (boy, I sound like an old fart). I think it's been replaced by getting an iPhone or maybe a tattoo, although I'm proud of my oldest nephew, who will turn 23 in April, for managing to make it through four years of college without getting one.

jaunty75

This doesn't bode well for the future of the old car hobby, which is being discussed over in the thread about the Chevy Nationals at Carlisle.

The world is different now from what it was 50 years ago. Many young people have significant college debt which will follow them for much of their working lives and will restrict how much they can do things like buy a house, save for their kids' college, save for retirement, and everything else. Car ownership has always been the "second-most" (if you buy a house) expensive thing the typical person encounters in life. If that expense can be avoided, so much the better for the other demands on your money.

sammy

So much for the pride one exhibits when owning a CAR. Sure there are other things one can take pride in owning, which in lies the problem. ...nobody actually seems to own anything. If one worked hard and saved, you were truly proud of what you owned. ...and you looked after it.it is what I was taught, not whether I could meet the monthly payment...lol. This respect started with car ownership...

Olds442redberet

I'm not to worried just yet. IMO The issues facing the auto industry evolve more around the extremely high cost of the vehicles, an already heavy debt load carried by the consumer through college and credit card debt and a lack of excitement in lower priced vehicles.

In the 90s I remember gasping when my sales manager started:
1. Pushing 5 and 6 year notes on new vehicles. Now I believe you can get a seven year note on a car. Wow! I'm not sure a new car will have any value after seven years.
2. I saw people trading in there cars and carrying their negative balance on their old car note over to the new note crating the term upside down.

We helped to destroyed the middle class. Now the sub-prime market is crashing. Note: all the repo trucks we see driving around now. The only people left who can really buy are the wealthy. So of course the industry is trying to stimulate interest in their very expensive cars with a new gimmick. I could see this concept working my doctor friend, he trades out of his BMW every year so this is an excellent incentive for someone like him. But not to the 99%, to which I belong. this is totally unfeasible.

But if I were rich I would consider becoming a member. It would be nice to trade out regularly and drive different vehicles.

cherokeepeople

jeez i rarely pay more then 1500 for a car in the first place.and they want that much a month,looks like i ain't gonna be cheezin in a caddy anytime soon.

VI Cutty

I think there are two things pushing initiatives like this. First up are the people who choose to live close to "downtown", where housing costs are high, square footage is low and parking spots are coveted. Car shares offer a way around the need to maintain 24/7 parking which can be very costly.

The second is the increasing cost of cars and the gadgets going in. Canada and the US have mandated that all new cars will have to be equipped with backup cameras; I seem to recall something else mandated by the US in the last few months as well. All the traction control and accident avoidance electronics being installed and so forth. If people buy into this car subscription/car sharing concept, manufacturers don't need to be as concerned about keeping vehicles "affordable" *koff* as they currently sorta kinda need to do.

MDchanic

I guess it's perfectly normal to have to restrict yourself to no more than three ounces of any liquid while travelling, and allow yourself to be strip searched before going there.

Completely, perfectly normal.

Country's going insane.

- Eric

redoldsman

It is sort of like a timeshare. People have been doing fractional ownership of corporate jets for years but apparently this is not ownership. I see this simply as a way to sell vehicles due to increased prices. As vehicles became more expensive longer loan terms became the norm. The along came leasing. Now we have timeshare or whatever. I wonder how this is different than renting a car.

don71

I believe that this could happen in some areas. Larger cities being one of them. The rural areas, I don't think this could happen for quite some time. Similar to some other rather good discussions we've had concerning the future and autos, I think we just have to wait and see. Its not gonna work everywhere. A trend to the future sure, I'll believe it when I see it though.

quaddriver

well, how much do you pay to 'rent' the software on the computer you typed this in on? norton? word? office 360? games?

how about music? amazon, itunes? movie media like netflix and hulu?

If you are in marketing and noted that Americans are easy to dupe into renting, what they once used to own, why not move to cars?

Personally, I will continue to be a rebel.

MDchanic

Um... $ Zero?

Guess this is all a generational thing.

- Eric

Olds64

I read an article just the other day about heavy duty trucks creeping up on $100k plus. No wonder this is happening when cars are getting so expensive. When my wife and I bought our Ford Flex new in 2011 it was $34k with decent options. Now they start even higher!

88 Cutty Classic

one reason is because public schooling is an absolute joke. they would rather indoctrinate the young, keeping them feable minded, instead of educating them on personal finances. they push so hard to go to college when the career track in 2017 should be to go to tech school and continue education later in life, possibly getting a company to pay for it or a portion of it. personal finance should be started in grammar school! I learned mountains of useless information in school but didnt learn the the basically financial tools of life. thats insane. thankfully, I had parents that were fiscally responsible and taught me how to handle money and think ahead. Now i'm not gonna say i'm perfect when it comes to money because after all i'm a car guy but you won't see me working a day past 60.

If a company would come out with a true bare bones car they would kill. i see people paying 40 grand for freakin KIAs.. you gotta be out of your mind!!! keep all the driver assist BS. all that does is create bad drivers dependant on a computer to perform a function and when it fails they are like a turtle its back. half of those features should be illegal in my opinion. All those driver assist features lessen the responsibility of operating a motor vehicle. No one with a licence should ever be made to take that for granted.

CRUZN 66

At this point, I presently have enough vehicles in my possession, ranging from 1966 thru 2012, to last me until my time is up... Ah, maybe I will get one more newer (2017/2018) vehicle just in case...

redoldsman

See what happens when they implement Obama's 50 mpg cafe. Better hope that one gets repealed.

VI Cutty

Bingo! Had that exact conversation with my 15 yr old daughter a couple days ago. She was impressed that the driver assist crap in her boss's Prius had saved him from a couple accidents and couldn't understand why I was anything but impressed. That just enables poor drivers to become worse, and when they're in a car without those features best be standing back and outta the way.

Olds442redberet

I had to take away my wife's SATNAV in order to get her to pay attention to where she was and where she was going. As tech savvy as people are now-a-days they have lost their abilities to navigate, dial a phone number, look up info, locate resources etc. And no, the computer does not place info and resources at your fingertips. You still have to know if what you're reading is fake, current, or even relevant. My wife and son go to the first things that pop up. Wikipedia! AHHHHHH!!!!!

I saw the same thing in the military. Soldiers getting lost once the batteries died in their divises. Numbskulls!

My wife's friend once told me the address we gave her wasn't a real address since her GPS didn't recognize it. It was a hotel on the beach that had been there for many many years. I had to go out and meet her at an address her GPS did recognize because she couldn't understand verbal instruction. My instructions had one turn to many. "Turn left once you cross the bridge". "Yes, the HWY you are on will take you over the bridge". "Yes, just take the first left once you are on the Island". One turn! Just one!
We never did find out why the road wasn't shown on her GPS. And I really didn't care. It was shown on the map in my glovebox. LOL

Fun71

That's what I was trying to convey in another thread. If new cars weren't DESIGNED with huge blind spots and had adequately sized mirrors there would not be a need for a buncha onboard electronics to monitor said blind spots. And if people paid attention to the road there wouldn't be a need for lane departure warning systems.

My dad was a career LEO who also taught driver training and defensive driving for the National Safety Council. He always stressed that driving was a full time job and it was driver inattention that resulted in the majority of "accidents" (which were actually not accidental at all).

cherokeepeople

saw a new freightliner semi the other day with an apt size sleeper $249,000.

Olds64

Yeah, semis are well over $150k. I was meaning the 3/4 ton and 1 ton diesel trucks by Ford, GM and Ram.

Speaking of semis, my dad; Oldsguy, worked at a company that leased used semis to customers. Apparently, the industry tries to get truckers to accept a lease too quickly on a semi. Then the trucker is sitting waiting for work so he/she can meet their lease payment at the end of the month.

droptopron

I think aplan like this could work for luxury brands but not Caddy just yet. BMW or Mercedes have more diverse line ups. I can't see someone spending this $$ to car hop from sedan to sedan.