Peak Car??

[wdfifteen]

I thought this was interesting. I've always believed car use was ever-increasing.

"We all know about peak oil but peak car has arrived in many respects. Thus although we shall enjoy two decades of rapidly rising sales of electric cars, starting with the decade of the hybrid, the ceiling of the number of cars needed overall is going to drop. In many countries, we have already reached both peak car ownership and peak per-person car travel, though of course the emerging countries are compensating for this temporarily. Nonetheless, too many of them have citizens living in high rise buildings among congested streets with almost no place for a car. Indeed, the University of California at Berkeley has established that rising wealth does not lead to more car use beyond $30,000 annual income even in countries with plenty of space - it peaks. Something similar is highly likely to happen in emerging economies.

In 2004, the USA, UK, Germany, France, Australia and Sweden saw the start of a decline in the number of kilometers the average person travelled in a car. In the UK, per-person car travel is down 5% since 2004 and car travel continues to drop in every city of Australia."

[Seahawk]

I love this type of analysis.

Off I go.

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I thought this was interesting. I've always believed car use was ever-increasing.

"We all know about peak oil but peak car has arrived in many respects. Thus although we shall enjoy two decades of rapidly rising sales of electric cars, starting with the decade of the hybrid, the ceiling of the number of cars needed overall is going to drop. In many countries, we have already reached both peak car ownership and peak per-person car travel, though of course the emerging countries are compensating for this temporarily. Nonetheless, too many of them have citizens living in high rise buildings among congested streets with almost no place for a car. Indeed, the University of California at Berkeley has established that rising wealth does not lead to more car use beyond $30,000 annual income even in countries with plenty of space - it peaks. Something similar is highly likely to happen in emerging economies.

In 2004, the USA, UK, Germany, France, Australia and Sweden saw the start of a decline in the number of kilometers the average person travelled in a car. In the UK, per-person car travel is down 5% since 2004 and car travel continues to drop in every city of Australia."

[Head416]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Indeed, the University of California at Berkeley has established that rising wealth does not lead to more car use beyond $30,000 annual income even in countries with plenty of space - it peaks.

This seems very suspicious to me. How many toy cars does a millionaire have versus somebody making $30k? If "car use" simply means miles travelled annually, regardless of number of different cars used, it still seems that somebody earning $30k would be more likely to ride the bus, take the train, or limit travelling due to fuel costs. Obviously I haven't done a study myself but I just don't see how this could be accurate.

Still an interesting topic in general, just commenting on this one sentence.

[island911]

more and more people telecommuting (or just not working)

all begs the question of why we put in more and more public transit.

[KNS]

Actually, I read an article not long ago that Japan is worried about this very thing. It seems that kids and young adults in Japan just don't have that much interest in automobiles as much as the older generation. The domestic Japanese auto manufacturers are concerened about future declining sales.

[944Larry]

I wouldn't worry about "peak oil'. Another myth by the oil companies to keep prices up.