Peak Oil is You
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Page added on January 6, 2015
Welcome To Peak Car
It’s looking increasingly likely that we’ve reached peak car, the point at which overall automobile usage tops out. The U.S. and Europe appear to be at that point now; the rest of the world may follow within a decade.
You’d think that would spell trouble for the privately owned car—a future of waning use and perhaps eventual extinction. Think again. Peak car is the result of some major trends that look to marks the biggest change in automobile use since Henry Ford, as the car evolves from a huge piece of standalone hardware in a garage to a computerized network tool for the 21st century.
Auto Use Really Is Down
Peak car represents a major U-turn on thinking from just five years ago. That’s when transportation researchers forecast that the world was headed full-throttle towards global gridlock in the next 20 years, with the number of vehicles on global roads worldwide jumping from 1 billion to 2 billion.
No longer. “We reached peak motorization [in the U.S.] around 2004,” says Michael Sivak, director of the Sustainable Worldwide Transportation group at the University of Michigan. The number of light-duty vehicle registrations in the U.S. stood at 236,448 in 2008; by 2010, it had dipped to 230,444. Total miles driven in the U.S. peaked in 2007. Similar trends hold in Europe.
Of course, other factors have depressed auto sales and use in recent years—most important, high oil prices and the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and the subsequent protracted recovery.
Sivak, however, argues that economic factors alone don’t explain the downturn in car ownership and usage, because U.S. declines in the number of cars owned per person and in households actually predate the Great Recession. As he told me: “Major contributors are increased telecommuting, increased use of public transportation, increased urbanization of the population, and young persons relying on electronic communication to replace some of their need for driving.”
As goes the U.S., this thinking suggests, so eventually goes the world. Though it might still take some time, given still-rising car adoption in Asia—especially China, already the biggest auto market in the world.
Why The Car Is Peaking
While not everyone agrees that Peak Car is here already, there’s a rough consensus among researchers that some major social and technological trends are converging to limit demand for new cars.
Susan Shaheen, a director of innovative mobility at UC Berkeley, suggests that today’s millennials are gravitating toward what she calls “shared mobility”—a term that encompasses cars, bikes and “rides” a la services like Uber or Lyft. Most of these services are only possible because of mobile apps, online vehicle reservations and “smart keys” that let people unlock and use vehicles scattered across a city instead of in often inconvenient central lots.
But she notes that other demographic factors are also at play. Over the past several years, for instance, Americans have started moving back to big cities in droves. That, in turn, increases the difficulty of driving, fueling, insuring and parking cars in increasingly congested urban environments.
Enter The Driverless Car
On top of all that, there’s potentially one more big game-changing technological development on the horizon: The self-driving car.
See also: Why Google’s Driverless Car Is Evil
Here’s how Sheehan sees the advent of cars that no longer require drivers:
Vehicles could eventually self-park and self-charge, provide first- and last-mile connectivity to public transit, and fill other gaps in the transportation network. As a result, the need for private vehicle ownership will likely decrease.
The fully autonomous car is still years away (if not longer) from hitting roads as a commercial vehicle. But automakers are already taking some major steps in that direction.
Many Ford models, for instance, already offer autonomous parallel parking. Later this year, the company will introduce cars that independently maneuver into empty spaces in a parking lot, Erich Merkle, Ford’s U.S. sales analyst, told me.
That’s not to say that big automakers embrace the notion of Peak Car. Far from it.
“The autonomous car changes the dynamics, because it allows you to be more productive while your car is in motion,” said Merkle. “It takes away your need to dedicate attention to the job of navigating your vehicle. You might have people putting more rather than fewer miles on a car.”
Merkle believes that the need for mobility is persistent. He said that in the United States, there are many places, especially in flyover states, where wide-open spaces make owning a car an economic necessity. It’s the means by which people get to work, run errands, and travel just about anywhere.
Even in cities, where millennials can hold off on buying a car while “living in studio apartments and clubbing it for a few years,” as Merkle puts it, the need for personal mobility returns with a vengeance when people settle down and start a family. “Never bet against procreation,” warned Merkle.
“Personal car ownership is not going away,” said Sheryl Connelly, Ford global consumer trend and futuring manager. “But it will be reinterpreted.”
Smart Cars Are Still Cars
As you might expect, automaker officials like Connelly see an ongoing need for mobility. “People need to be in cars,” she said.
At the same time, Ford recognizes that consumers expect to be connected all the time, even while traveling in a car. That’s why Ford was among the first car companies to offer Bluetooth connections for smartphones—at first, mostly to let drivers make and receive hands-free calls in their vehicles—even in economy cars and often as a standard feature.
Under the direction of chairman Bill Ford Jr., the automaker was also among the first to officially re-think its mission. No longer is Ford simply about selling hardware and software in the form an automobile; its mission now is to provide “mobility solutions.” It even just hired a chief data and analytics officer to “speed development of the mobility, connectivity and autonomous driving innovations that will improve people’s lives.”
Nearly every major carmaker is now thinking beyond cars to a range of connected mobility offerings.
Technology will most likely both decrease the need for personal vehicle ownership (see Uber) and make it easier to deal with congested roads. Cars and navigation tools are smart enough to warn you about traffic jams, or help you navigate around them.
“The midterm vision is vehicle-to-vehicle, and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications,” Connelly said. “But it’s still about cars, and how they move people from point A to point B.”
13 Comments on "Welcome To Peak Car"
bobinget on Tue, 6th Jan 2015 4:33 pm
Auto Sales across the board are up last month 20% over last year. (42,000,000) units sold, (worldwide)
Expect Chinese cars to begin to make inroads on Japanese by 2016, All Chinese need are ‘Brands”
No self respecting terrorist will be caught dead in any ‘Technical’ other then Toyota.
Mercedes make the best car bomb suicide vehicle.
China needs brand recognition like that.
If ‘Peak Car’ is reached my guess will be 60,000,000
units sold, worldwide by 2025.
bobinget on Tue, 6th Jan 2015 4:43 pm
If large cities use shared self-driving cars, fewer, far fewer will be needed.` No need to park close to your door. The little car you just dismissed is looking for a parking space waiting for a new commander.
If you think this will impact auto sales, think again.
Chinese cities under 20,000,000 are called villages.
The world’s poor are at YOUR door and want in.
Rodster on Tue, 6th Jan 2015 5:20 pm
People are driving less because of higher gas prices and a depressed economy. It’s tough to make car payments etc and have to fill up an SUV. I would love to see what the numbers look like with gas prices going down.
Makati1 on Tue, 6th Jan 2015 10:26 pm
The US spent all of it’s wealth on a lifestyle that had no future. Sprawling ‘housing’ tracts of soon-to-be crumbling boxes, abandoned and overrun by rats and cockroaches. Strip malls, ‘big box’ stores and ‘Shopping Centers’ bleeding tenants like a hemophiliac in a briar patch. Millions of miles of roads paved with what is now being mined and refined in Canada for fuel, and in the northern states, have a life expectancy of years, not decades.
No, the US blew it big time and is now trying to take over the whole world and make everyone a slave to the 1/10%. Not going to happen as the other 99.9% see what is happening and are building a wall to keep the Empire out. Interesting times…
Macdad on Wed, 7th Jan 2015 6:32 am
Your rant doesn’t contribute much to this conversation, perhaps you meant to reply to some anti-American article?
Other countries, besides the USA, have cars and miles of roads… and malls.
The only wall I see being built, is the one along the Mexican boarder, and Mexico is not the ones building it.
Davy on Wed, 7th Jan 2015 7:42 am
Makster, I used to think the US had the greatest misallocation of resources mankind has ever seen but China takes that prize and by a long shot. I will not diminish the stupidity shown in the US with strip malls and suburban sprawl but China is off the charts. China has used more concrete in a few years than the US has in decades. China has huge malinvestments everywhere you look. China has a brownfield countryside that used to produce food but now is destroyed beyond repair. Water sources have been so polluted as to be unusable for decades. Highways, cities, industries, and airports across the country built in a mastisizing cancer of uncontrolled excessive growth fuelled by greed and deception.
China was once once of the best positioned for descent with few cars and good rural subsistence agriculture. Then the western growth policies were embraced and now look at the place. China is a sewer of pollution and development. This is true across Asia and Asia is in the worst possible position as far as carrying capacity. There is no way 4BIL people in a small area like Asia will be feed properly. Asia is home to a significant proportion of mega cities that have zero future. One such city is where you live Makster.
So if you are going to hypocritically accuse the US of your venomous spew why not show some balance for the huge predicament in your backyard Makster? I love how you talk about the growth and vitality of Asia and the decay and pessimism of the west. In the new descent paradigm in which the western developed world is in and has been in we are leap frogging Asia in the proper trend of degrowth. Much has already been completed in the west. Manufacturing is gone to the extent that Asia has taken it up. So in a descent paradigm the brown fields have been repair to a degree and less new ones. All the very nasty ills of hyper growth have been transferred to Asia with degrowth in the west. Good luck Makster with your gore-sted.
GregT on Wed, 7th Jan 2015 7:50 am
Has anyone here actually seen a reduction of traffic where they live over the past 6 years?
I’m curious as hell, because here in Vancouver BC traffic has grown exponentially, and every single place that I have travelled to in recent years has been the same.
Seeing less traffic in your area, or not? Please do tell.
Davy on Wed, 7th Jan 2015 8:01 am
Greg, nope. I have been looking for decrease traffic. I am amazed at the resilience of the modern car culture. I think reduced traffic and congestion is around the corner paradoxically with these falling oil prices and the ensuing financial carnage. I am just not sure of the time frame. These days economic dysfunction and irrational economic abandonment has not kicked in like it soon will. I suspect driving will decrease with bankruptcies and oil shortages. I see possible oil shortages yet, supply may remain adequate because demand destruction is out pacing supply destruction. We seem to have entered the surreal bumpy descent with new rules. We are in uncharted water in the dark near a reef. Let us hope the nearby island has some food and shelter.
JuanP on Wed, 7th Jan 2015 8:21 am
Greg, traffic is at an all time high in Miami and the surrounding areas, IMO. I think it is very likely worse than it was in 2008 before the bust. No sign of diminishing any time soon.
Traffic is also at an all time high in Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina right now according to my friends and family down there, and they are all bitching about it. I heard last week that Buenos Aires is a huge traffic jam for more than 12 hours a day.
ghung on Wed, 7th Jan 2015 8:28 am
Reduction in traffic? Since 2008, yes, mainly in commercial traffic related to the building boom prior to the crash. Far fewer concrete and gravel trucks, lumber deliveries, etc. Most of the building was of retirement homes and second/vacation homes for upper middle-class baby boomers. There’s still building going on; folks taking advantage of fallen prices, but no recovery as such.
We managed to get our property tax assessment reduced (by half) on some of our properties after they were priced unrealistically high during the boom years. Quietly hoping the real estate feeding frenzy never returns; expecting it won’t at this point. Many of the new transplants were undesirable BAU monkeys (pure consumers) from the flat lands; good for business, but not much else. Speaking in the collapse/decline sense here. Don’t need any more ‘entitlement’ folks around who couldn’t fix a Popsicle stick with a tube of super glue.
GregT on Wed, 7th Jan 2015 8:45 am
“Don’t need any more ‘entitlement’ folks around who couldn’t fix a Popsicle stick with a tube of super glue.”
Thanks for the morning chuckle Ghung. I get where you’re coming from.
OFT on Wed, 7th Jan 2015 9:06 am
Yes – traffic in my part of London has dropped by more than 10% since 2000, despite a gradual growth in population.
The following link gives UK statistics on levels of traffic across different UK regions. This specific link is for the various London Boroughs. In general traffic within the town and its immediate boroughs has gone down by 10-20% in that time. Outside of town the trend is probably different.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/traffic-counts/area.php?region=London
(select any of the listed Boroughs to get a table of traffic stats and a graph for the lat 13 years.)
The increase in public transport investment, the advent of buses 24/7 and smart payment cards means that these are the preferred transport method for many. I have 2 cars in the household, but the chances are that they will stay on the drive for most of my journeys.
bobinget on Wed, 7th Jan 2015 2:47 pm
OFT, do you experience this?
http://www.citymetric.com/horizons/some-london-streets-have-already-hit-their-pollution-limits-entire-year-618