Compared to our parents’ generation, it’s often thought that we urban millennials don’t care much for cars.
We’re perfectly accustomed to cabbing it, calling an uber, jumping on public transit, or even – when we dare take on the cars – biking it, right?
Well, according to a recent Bloomberg report, it looks like things could be changing (insert a collective sigh of relief from the automobile industry).
For the first time, millennials have surpassed Gen X in new-car purchases.
Millennials accounted for 27 per cent of new car sales in the US in 2014 – a figure up from 18 per cent in 2010, according to J.D. Power & Associates.
They’re now the second largest group of new car buyers, after their baby boomer parents. Baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) bought 38 per cent of new vehicles sold in the same time frame.
Turns out the city isn’t all it’s cracked up to be – especially in light of increasing costs of real estate as of late. millennials are starting to find jobs and relocate to the suburbs and smaller cities, subsequently leading to the need of an automobile.
Perhaps the only reason that millennials weren’t buying cars before was simply because we couldn’t afford them.
Even though cars are getting more expensive, long-term, low-interest loans are making them more affordable. According to the 2014 survey, millennials are opting for smaller cars, with small car purchases accounting for 20 per cent of cars purchased.
Gen Xers, on the other hand, prefer to cruise around in compact SUVs – SUVs having accounted for 15 per cent of their total car sales.
In the future, the number of millennial buyers is expected to only increase – and that’s exactly what the automakers want to hear. Let’s just hope they can efficiently respond to the needs of their consumers and the increase in demand.
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