Cars Become Uncool

The Wall Street Journal documents the problems Japanese car manufacturers have with selling into their own market. The Age of the Automobile at least in Japan seems to be over, as less than 3 million automobiles were sold in 2007, a decline of 31% from the peak in 1990.

Seems that young people there deem cars to be uncool & unneccessary and they’d rather spend their coin on PCs and iPods and hang out on the Internets.

Throw in global warming, a slowing economy, Peak Oil and traffic congestion, and things don’t look too good for the industry. So what’s a poor car co to do?… well they’re experimenting with cute, as in the Pivo2 (shown) and social interiors, like the Round Box. Both are concept cars & unlikely to make it into production…hmm.

…our suggestion?…go ad-supported. Ie give the cars away for free, but force the passengers to watch advertisements. Hey, why not?…it’s the way of the web.

Japan’s Young Won’t Rally Round the Car – WSJ, Feb 29 2008

Related posts:

1. The 100 Ugliest Cars
2. 100 Coolest Cars
3. The Most Beautiful Cars, Ever
4. The Ten Fastest Cars
5. Tata Nano, the World’s Cheapest Car, is the Same Price as 18 Apple nanos

Tagged as: Car sales, Nissan Pivo2