I’m old enough to remember when there was a huge meltdown over the idea of Millennials not buying cars, not having kids, and otherwise destroying the fabric of American life. This is part of a proud tradition of one generation freaking out over another one. GenXers complain about Boomers, who complain about Millennials, who complain about both while trying to prove to Gen Z that they’re still young (and mumbling under their breath that the kids are too soft).
Now it’s Gen Z’s turn to not buy enough cars, and the data behind it is quite convincing. Younger people are not buying as many new cars, and I don’t blame them. Cars are expensive. Plus, in a growing number of places it’s probably net cheaper to take alternative forms of transportation, including ridesharing.
Maybe that’ll be helpful if companies can’t build more cars because of a shortage of rare earth minerals from China. The EU is raising an alarm and asking China for help. Also asking China for help? President Trump, who is starting to admit that negotiating with the country is maybe going to be a bit tough.
Remember when everyone in America was going to buy a Cybertruck? Or a Rivian R1T? That didn’t quite happen, but at least some Europeans are maybe interested in buying a refreshed Model Y now that Elon Musk is back focused on building cars and not politics… well, sort of.
The Kids Are (Probably) Alright
Do I have the power to still hold a grudge after more than a decade? I like to think I’m an evolved person who forgives and forgets. The reality, though, is that the power of forgetfulness usually wins out over my desire to extend grace. I’ve been in a friendly conversation with someone, only to remember that we had a tiff at some point, the content of which I cannot recall. It’s probably better that way.
I will not, however, forgive The New York Times for its big piece back in 2013 titled “The End Of Car Culture,” which was bad even by the standards of Sunday Review think-pieces:
A study last year found that driving by young people decreased 23 percent between 2001 and 2009. The millennials don’t value cars and car ownership, they value technology — they care about what kinds of devices you own, Ms. Sheller said. The percentage of young drivers is inversely related to the availability of the Internet, Mr. Sivak’s research has found. Why spend an hour driving to work when you could take the bus or train and be online?
From 2007 to 2011, the age group most likely to buy a car shifted from the 35 to 44 group to the 55 to 64 group, he found.
Whether members of the millennial generation will start buying more cars once they have kids to take to soccer practice and school plays remains an open question.
Obviously, Millennials who were set back by the freakin’ Global Financial Crisis did indeed bounce back and buy cars when they could afford them. I remember being very angry about this piece at the time and, with the benefit of hindsight, we know it was all crap. As MIT Professor Christopher Knittel has pointed out, not only are Millennials buying a lot of cars, they’re also driving more than previous generations. They’re just a little slower out of the gate, in general, but make up for it on the back end.
There’s a new study from S&P Global showing that 18-34-year-olds are buying fewer cars, as you can see in the graph above. Why?
Affordability remains a major concern for young adults, as new vehicle prices climb, and monthly payments have increased by 30% in the past four years. Nearly one in five new vehicles now carry monthly payments exceeding $1,000, putting ownership out of reach for many in the 18–34 age group.
The share of new vehicle registrations by adults aged 18-34 has fallen from 12% in Q1 2021 to below 10% in the past two quarters – a troubling trend. In contrast, adults aged 55+ now make up nearly half of all new registrations and have held the largest share for eight consecutive quarters, since Q2 2023.
Millennials shot ahead of Boomers for a few years, but it’s the Boomers and GenXers with the disposable income who can afford a $1,000+ monthly payment that have overtaken the market. Additionally, as the article points out, younger generations have more options:
As affordability concerns mount, young adults are shifting their attitudes toward vehicle ownership, especially as many now face the return of student loan payments. Interest in used vehicles is growing, driven by lower monthly payments and reduced insurance costs.
At the same time, subscription-based services and car-sharing platforms are gaining traction, offering flexible new alternatives to traditional vehicle ownership. Unlike previous generations, today’s young adults can access vehicles without shouldering the full financial burden of purchasing and insuring a new car.
If you live in a place like San Francisco, I think not owning a car could be wise for a younger person. In addition to public transit, you have to take a lot of Waymo rides before you eclipse the amount you’d pay monthly for a car (parking, monthly payment, fuel, insurance, et cetera). At the very least, a used car might make more sense.
Do I think many of these consumers will get older, eventually have kids, and start buying cars? Absolutely. Will that number be a bit smaller than in the past? Maybe, but this bit of data doesn’t mean much when you consider how expensive cars are at the moment. I do think it opens the door for automakers with small electric or hybrid vehicles to pick up lifelong fans. Perhaps this is an opening for Slate Auto.
Where Did All The Rare Earths And Magnets Go?
Modern cars, including but not limited to EVs, require a lot of what people generally refer to as “Rare Earth” materials, as well as permanent magnets. China is one of the main sources for both, so it’s no surprise that the Chinese government is trying to remind people of its importance amidst all this trade war talk.
That seems to be a big concern for the European Union, which is claiming that China is slow-rolling its supplies, per Bloomberg:
The European Union’s trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, said he raised industry-wide concerns over Chinese export restrictions on rare earths and magnets with his counterpart Wang Wentao on Tuesday.
“It was one of my priorities to address this issue yesterday and we did,” Sefcovic told reporters Wednesday in Paris, where he’s attending a conference at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“I informed my Chinese counterpart about the alarming situation in the European car industry, but I would say industry as such because clearly rare earth and permanent magnets are absolutely essential for the industrial production,” he said.
The EU trade commissioner described the situation as “extremely disruptive.”
Everyone who isn’t a Chinese automaker seems to be looking for sources of material elsewhere, including Lucid, which just signed a deal with a Vancouver-based company for the type of graphite necessary to produce battery cells.
China Plays Tough On Trade
By my math, today is 60 days from President Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement, and I’ve never felt more liberated, personally. The stated goal was to make 90 deals in 90 days, and so far we’ve got… no actual signed deals, although there’s a rough outline of a deal with the United Kingdom.
While agreements with the EU and Japan/South Korea are important, the biggest deal is going to be with China. How’s that going?
U.S. President Donald Trump said that Chinese President Xi Jinping is a difficult man to strike a deal with, in a late-night social media post as speculation swirls over a possible call between the leaders.
“I like President XI of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!” Trump wrote.
It was not clear whether direct communication with Xi had prompted Trump’s post. U.S. officials have suggested the president could speak with his Chinese counterpart sometime this week, while a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters on Tuesday that he had “no information to share on that.”
That’s from Nikkei Asia, which noted that the Trump administration is also unhappy about the rare-earth export licenses they’d expected to get from China in return for reducing some tariffs on the country. Automakers in the United States both benefit from restrictions on Chinese cars and, at the same time, would love to keep some Chinese imports and need help with battery production.
I’m not sure how any of this gets resolved.
Where Did All The EV Trucks Go?
The Cybertruck hasn’t been the hit that Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicted, but he’s not the only one to see the dream of the EV truck fizzle. The Rivian R1T, Silverado EV, Hummer EV, and the Ford F-150 Lightning have all sold, to varying degrees, but not in a way that threatens the popularity of gas-powered trucks. Is it possible that Ford sells more hybrid F-150s and Mavericks than all the electric trucks combined this year? I’m curious, but it seems like that could happen.
So what’s going on? Automotive News explains it quite succinctly:
While automakers saw EV pickups as a potentially lucrative addition to their lineups, their capabilities were a mismatch with many buyers, analysts said. High prices and limited range for towing and hauling, compared with combustion rivals, didn’t help.
“The powertrain that people choose in their truck is a big deal,” said Alex Knizek, associate director of test development at Consumer Reports. “To get that capability in an electric vehicle, you have to really stretch the boundaries of what an electric powertrain can do.”
Proportionally, the middling sales of the R1T are probably worse for Rivian than the Cybertruck sales slump is for Tesla, but Tesla had the most out-sized expectations. And while we’re talking about Tesla and Musk, it’s probably worth mentioning that the new Model Y did cause a bump in sales in Norway, although Tesla sales in the rest of Europe continue to fall as those countries wait for the cheapest Model Y to become available. I suspect we’ll see a sales boost in many countries as the new Model Y hits more markets. The size and length of that boost is going to be key.
Musk’s government job is over, so he’s back to running his companies full time and staying out of politics. Just kidding, he went on his social media platform to call President Trump’s key legislation a “disgusting abomination” for not addressing the deficit.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
My core belief is that every Fiona Apple album is better than the one that preceded it. She’s been a bit quiet lately, but that’s because she’s become a court-watcher and has been documenting the effect that high bail and pre-trial detention have on vulnerable families. She turned it into this song, “Pretrial (Let Her Go Home)” and it’s both a striking polemic and a great song.
The Big Question
If you’ve read this far, I hope it means you enjoy the healthy, regular Morning Dumps we provide. If you haven’t already, would you consider supporting the site by becoming a member? If enough of you do so in June, it means that we’ll buy a SsangYong Rodius and make our car designer Adrian drive it around. Click here to become a member, and use code “ssangwrong” and you’ll get 10% off. For less than $5 a month you can support this place and also reduce the number of ads you see!
Lead photo: Ford
Outside of affordability, there are fewer reasons to drive.
Socialization happens mostly online, shopping can happen exclusively online. If I need a bag of Doritos from the local convenience store, there are more than one service willing to bring it to me without leaving my couch.
A lot of jobs can be accomplished remotely. I started working remotely in 2007, and I wasn’t the first of my friends to be doing it (I think it may have still been called ‘telecommuting’ at the time). It only makes sense that more and more people worked remotely each year after that.
Add in ride share apps and personal vehicle ownership has become less critical, at least in major metropolitan areas.
I’m old, so I associate a car with freedom and would have a hard time not owning one. But if were younger I may have had all the independence I wanted with an internet connection.
I’ve been shopping for an EV truck for 10 years now. I had a deposit on a CyberTruck back when it looked like it might be interesting, and before the Tesla ‘T’ started to look like the mark of The Beast. Rivian doesn’t sell the R1T where I live, and it’s an expensive everything-car that I just don’t need as a (checks driveway) fifth car. The F150 lightning- I almost bought one, but again, not easy to get where I live, and bigger than I want to go through the extra effort. Silverado is the same deal but weirdly gaudy. I had a deposit on a Fisker Alaska. I have deposits on both Slate and that other one with a weirdly short hood and am hoping they come through. If there were a Maverick EV or even PHEV, or Ranger, or Tacoma, or Colorado/Canyon, it would be that fifth car right now. Hell, I’ve looked into EV swapping a classic truck, but just don’t have the bandwidth to do that. I don’t know how many are like me, but I just want a basic goddamn truck with the perks I’ve learned to love from my EVs for basic damn stuff like driving dirty bulky stuff around town.
When introduced Ford said they protected the space for the Escape PHEV’s battery pack in the Maverick. They said the same thing about Hybrid AWD and they finally brought that one to market for the 2025 MY. So maybe there is hope that we will see a PHEV Maverick in the future. They really only need to tool for the charge port opening since the rest of the stuff would be the same as the Escape.
So your saying that young folks aren’t splashing for new cars while the economy is shaky and society collapses around them?! Unbelievable!
I’m GenX and still can’t afford a new R1T. I blame the Boomers.
The article oversells millennials’ complaining about genx.
Nobody complains about genx. They may as well not exist.
The big thing I saw in my life and in the lives of friends is when you have kids. It’s a major life event that makes you evaluate if your vehicles fit your needs.
For me, I had a sports coupe, my wife had an older worn compact car. Neither was the best possible for a baby, with one being too small for a car seat and the other one tending to reek of burning oil.
We both thought “They both run well, we’ll go car shopping when the older car finally dies” and then a single plastic do-dad with a + on it instead of a – and we were shopping for a new car.
Today’s 18-34 year olds are holding off on having families, which means that this major life event that convinced me to start shopping dealerships instead of classified ads isn’t as common for them.
Yeah, my brother and I are millennials, him being towards the younger end of millennials, and he and his wife have actively decided not to have kids just due to the general state of society. They’re millionaires, so child expenses aren’t a concern, but the state of the world those children would be adults in worries them.
I don’t regret having kids, but I can understand why more and more younger people aren’t.
And don’t forget that the Tariffs on Section 232 went up to 50% today and unfortunately that’s literally the nuts and bolts of the country. So as you go to repair your car and realize that the bolts you need are more expensive you can say thank you.
So how long before Elon calls Marco Rubio (or Scott Bessent, or Howard Lutnick, take your pick) a pedo?
If it makes anyone feel better, I waited until 50 to buy anything new, and that was because the used market had not righted itself yet, and the 2024 stock in January 2025 was being so heavily discounted, it made no sense to pull the trigger, I do hope interest rates drop at some point but in the end it was not as terrible as it is currently. prices have gone right back up and the interest rates are not dropping anymore it seems.
I have experienced first hand a great deal of 18 year olds in the last decade who have never driven and have no interest. each to there own and I get it somewhat. We drove to socialize, meet people and shop. most of that is done online, and there is a bevy of X’ers who never really made the money they needed to to get to the 1000 a month car payment, that are now side hustling these kids to make up for it.
My poor 12 year old is already at a disadvantage as she was raised semi-feral like me, already has side by side and motorcycle that she learned to safely drive for a few years now and has designs on at least 2 of my spare vehicles. but she knows the deal and can only have any of them if she learns to drive the stick ones first. (which is most of them I suppose)
I am a full decade older than the “kids” in this study and directly within the scope of that NYT article I guess.
My wife or I are solidly upper middle income DINKs and the closest we have ever had to a new car is the Corolla my in-laws bought for my wife as a college graduation gift. Unfortunately they traded in a really nice AE86 after her sophomore year and proceeded to use the new Corolla as a daily commuter for 2 years before handing it off with about 14k miles.
We didn’t have the income (or need because of the gifted Toyota) to buy new for several years and by the time we did need another car it was clear that buying lightly used got us so much more car for the same price. I really don’t see a situation where I ever buy new but I guess there is always a chance.
Used prices have gotten so high recently that buying new might make sense next time you’re shopping. Manufacturers may be offering financing deals, plus throw in a warranty and it gets easier to justify spending a few more bucks on something new.
Anything is possible but I just bought a CPO 2021 A6 allroad with 9,000 miles on it for about 30K less than the same spec new. Within a 100 mile radius there is currently only one with similar specs available at a dealer so they aren’t exactly loading them up with cash discounts and although there is risk even on a German luxury car $30k covers a lot of repairs if something comes up beyond the CPO timeframe.
It was always amusing to read those articles and the authors suggested date range of what defines a millennial. Think that’s rather strange start then look up the author to see they were born the year before their suggested date range. I can remember my dad saying when the generation after the boomers get in power we are in trouble because the early ones are idiots. He was more right then he realized I guess. Most people I know in their 20s to 30s pretty much say they can’t see a way toward financial security. Some were lucky enough to be born into something or fall into something. My youngest sister was just able to buy a house with her husband because he works in trades and did an union apprenticeship instead of collage. His union had homebuyers work shops and really helped too. If it was just her alone she would probably be living with our parents or one of us or some kind of share frat like house with 8 people in it like she was at one point. I think she is just starting to make okish money after years of school and licensing, unpaid work and under paid work. The scion brand was supposed to be for younger people it seemed to work for that but also got a much older following the same is true of the Nissian cube both the xb and cube became big hits with older people that had trouble walking because they could easily get in them. I wish they would bring out a car designed for a younger demo again because it will probably be cheap and decent. I can’t say I have any use for an overpriced statement on wheels in bandaid beige.
Matt,
When you write something to the effect of “Now they can afford a $1k note/month on a car”…
Are we all under the assumption that most people CLEAR $4k/month? Because, I know that that cannot be possible.
Depending on the state one lives in, that would mean one is making roughly $85k on paper, and clearing $52k-ish. There is no way that is happening.
The median household income in the US for GenX is about $110K. Millennials are slightly behind but still over $100K for the oldest 2/3 of the generation. Boomers are slightly lower but are also much more likely to have a paid off home and retirement savings so a $1k/mo. car payment isn’t quite so limited to 25% of their take home pay.
It seems logical that when 20% of cars are over $1k/month the people at the peak of their earnings would be buying most of the cars. Not sure why this seems to be unreasonable.
I guess, but still…
I find it hard to believe that all the folks that work at most service industry jobs (from oil change to grocery store produce to the clerk at the perfume counter) make anything near $100k.
Basically, unless one is upper level white collar, unless it’s a union, they are “poor”.
People as you’ve described aren’t making that, but that’s why they don’t buy new cars either. Or at least they aren’t buying cars that would necessitate a $1K/month payment. If you’re spending that kind of money on a car then yes you are “rich” or “rich-adjacent”. Sorry to say but $100K/year doesn’t go as far as it used to.
“Back in the day” when you could buy a small sedan for $15K if you were in the service industry, there were still expensive new cars that only rich folk bought. The difference now is there isn’t any $15K-equivalent cars on the market anymore.
He quoted household income, not individual.
I’m well above the GenX median and the thought of a 1k car note gives me vapors. I’d rather spend the money on the house, travel, college….
Oh absolutely – I am a double income no kids household solidly in the upper middle income range and really hated the 18 months when we had two car payments at $1200 together. Owing that much each month on any single car is definitely not something I am interested in.
Same, there’s a huge difference between being able to pay for and being able to afford.
My boomer FIL buys a new car every 2 years. Meanwhile, I haven’t bought a new car in 42 years. I’m not even sure how someone under the age of 34 could afford one. All tracks for me.
EV trucks are cool but still not a great use case for me. I averaged 12 MPG towing my boat the other weekend. EV probably would’ve needed to stop 2-3 times to charge. Doable sure but still not worth the tradeoffs. If they would just make a damn PHEV Colorado it would probably be the first new car I buy. Depending a how much of a premium it costs, of course.
So, Ford should make a really sexy and stylish 2+2 coupe on the Escape/Bronco Sport platform and sell it in a bare bones, entry level spec for $24,000 with lots of factory and dealer accessories and options, and hire loads of social media influences to promote the hell out of it?
Or they could just make a more basic version of the Mustang.
Well, that would be ideal. But, I question how much they could cut out of it, given that it’s the only model built on its architecture, not much economies of scale vs back when it was based on the platform of a high volume cheap economy car
But, a basic non-turbo version with needle gauges and minimal screens and electronic gadgets would be appealing
And then they could make an “LX 5.0” version for the cheapest V8 car just like back in the old foxbody Mustang days.
Good grief, I’m right in the middle of the Millennial generation, so I was in school/college during this time. How many high school kids in ANY generation are buying brand new cars themselves?
I bought my first car (a used 2003 WRX) in 2010 with my signing bonus for my new job after college. I bought my first brand new car in 2011 (an Insight) for my wife as my company had a modest cash subsidy for buying hybrids at the time. It was in the low $20k range for a mid-trim model, and our 3-year loan monthly payment was like $200.
We also saw the housing market in 2011 was at its floor in both home prices and rates, so we spent every dime we had buying a house. I remember my parents making snide comments spending so much at the time, but now our house is worth 4x what we owe on it, and we’ve locked in a rate so low we couldn’t rent an apartment for what our mortgage is.
A $1000/month car payment is terrifying to me. I can’t imagine have that much debt liability tied up in a depreciating asset. Both my wife and I grew up with highly fiscally-responsible parents, but I fully blame schools for not having more economics classes. I tried, but they either weren’t available, or I wasn’t allowed to because of my engineering track.
Thankfully, my company had a required training for all new college grads on personal finance, how the stock market works, how to read the corporate quarterly results and what the terms mean, etc. Really awesome of the company to do that.
Wait, you didn’t learn any of that BEFORE leaving college?
I agree that it’s a nice thing your company is doing (if for nothing else than their own self-preservation), but…holy shit. You didn’t know any of that?
I mean, I knew the basics from my parents to get myself started, but no, I was outright told I couldn’t take personal finance classes in high school (they didn’t have one), nor in college (only business majors could take it).
Instead, I was forced to take college electives like Asian-American studies. I’m 100% for inclusivity and expanding my horizons, but it was very frustrating to get outright denied taking practical life skill courses.
Again, my parents taught me about personal financial responsibility, so I wasn’t completely clueless, but it was great learning about what “non-GAAP”, and other earnings terms meant in the corporate class.
Huh. Ok. Thanks for the reply.
It’s just baffling to me, as when I learned about everything finance, there wasn’t really much of an “internet”. Like, today, you could learn all the practical info you need in maybe 12 hours of YouTube vids (including pauses to study the charts).
True enough, and while YouTube was only in its infancy when I was in school, I certainly could have found enough online resources at the time or taken a finance class at the community college or something. It was annoying how much my university touted their engineers getting high paying jobs (which I did get straight out of school), but then outright refusing to equip those engineers with skills on managing that income. At least I asked and tried to figure it out, lots of my peers didn’t, and several are in pretty woeful financial states now.
That’s great for you, it really is. 🙂
But, herein lies the problem when you speak about your cohorts…
Everybody knows that College is a pretty useless waste of time. It’s fun, and almost everyone gets laid, lol, but practically, it’s a waste of time/life anymore.
I have a fancy degree that I could still probably get a job with, but only because I keep up with the field.
It’s not a corporation/university “fault” that a person hasn’t learned what they need to. That onus is on the individual.
That’s what is supposed to be learned in college. The tech specs can be taught in a weekend.
The only use college was to me was getting the credential to get into grad school. That credential got me my jobs so far. But credential creep is definitely a thing. Now there’s talk of requiring a clinical doctorate. Just to make the same I make now and of no practical benefit.
Respectfully, that’s absolutely not true. For engineering fields especially in the high-tech industry, a bachelor’s degree in an engineering field is the bare minimum necessary for recruiters to even look at your resume. Honestly, most recruiters are looking for Masters degrees these days. I would know, I’ve been on both the applicant and hiring side of that coin.
I will say trades are grossly underappreciated and should be socialized much better in high schools, and sure, there are definitely degrees like communications or philosophy that probably won’t ever be necessary to find a job. However, you can’t make blanket statements about university degrees that they’re a waste of time, because there’s far more nuance to it than that.
Ok, so maybe 15% or even 1/5th of degrees are mandatory. Nobody needs a degree in math or musical theory from a state school. Happy now? lol
Same. Personal finance and economics classes weren’t options in high school and I took weird Russian history classes and stuff like that instead of economics in college.
Our stories are shockingly similar in this area! (and we’ve doubled up on our payments to pay that bitch off ASAP!) 🙂
Yeah, for the Millennials who were able to nab houses at rock bottom prices and interest rates, it was a great move. We’re very thankful we were able to to do that back then.
We’re Gen Xers and already well into our 40’s in 2011, and yes, thankfully we were prepared and ready to buy then as well.
Home ownership in the region where we were born, where we work and where our Boomer parents reside was unattainable to us before that and has exponentially become even more so since that time, it’s sad! 🙁 (S.F. Bay Area).
The less younger folks care about cars, the better off they will be. While I have loved most things automotive from an early age (my requested birthday gift from the age of 8 was a subscription to Car & Driver), I am aware that cars are generally one of the most significant manifestations of financial irresponsibility in the country, largely because of the perverted role cars play in the race for social status. The less people care about what we drive and put more effort into things that truly matter, the better off we will all be.
Viewing cars purely as transportation and examining them as nothing more than a cost-benefit analysis is the most rational approach and should be commended. I have no desire to frame my irrational interest in cars as something that needs to be perpetuated.
I agree, but will have to add that the majority of people I know who spend the most on cars are those who don’t care about them. Most have high incomes (though not all), so those aren’t hobbling their future like a “gear head” who wastes all their money to make their mediocre car worse just to fit in with a crowd of other people who are bad with finances, but it still seems odd to me to pay more than needed if they don’t even care—that’s money for investing, vacations, house updates, charity, or hobbies. If I didn’t care about cars, I’d have an older Corolla hybrid or something along those lines, CUV or minivan if I had kids. I do care about cars, but the one I have didn’t cost that much more than a new Corolla hybrid, making it one of the cheapest cars of anyone I interact with.
My observations (with the perspective of being in product development and marketing for 30 years) are that the people who spend a lot on stuff they generally don’t care about do so almost exclusively in the pursuit of status. They often just feel that they need to drive something in line with their social class. The same happens with clothes, houses, and even the dogs people own.
I find it completely idiotic, but status is the primary driver of all luxury goods purchases.
Home ownership to us was possible till we got married and my spouse got a high paying job during covid as travel nurse. We bougth our house right before the market went crazy with interest rates and prices went up so much. For the whole subdivision where we live, we are the younger household (In our early 30s). Evyerone else are families with kids with teenagers or smaller kids but parents in their late 40s.
New car ownership was possible after buying the house since we were saving money for it, still paying for some cars but with only one income it couldnt be possible to do all of that and we live in an affordable cost of living area (SE Michigan).
All of my coworkers that are single or not married on their 20s either have roomates or live on small apartments with no clear path for home ownership, still paying for one vehicle and living paycheck to paycheck. This is not the american dream at all.
I’m in my mid 40s so on the tail end of gen x but even though I can afford a new car I probably won’t buy one. Not anytime soon anyway.
I’m closer to the end of my career than the beginning so my mindset going into my 50s is to get everything in line for retirement. An expensive new car which is a massive depreciating asset makes no sense at all.
I get the YOLO mindset and an air conditioner could fall out of a window on top of me tomorrow. But there are a lot of good fun used cars out there that already took the depreciation hit.
I’m a few years ahead of you and feel the same way. I CAN afford a new car, but I don’t buy one because there are may other better uses for my money.
We buy new but keep them a while and do our own maintenance. We buy one new car that my wife drives. I get the hand-me-down former new car (usually around 80k miles). If I’m buying for myself it’s probably old and used.
It’s fun to shop for an interesting car on the used market. It’s less fun shopping for recent used commuter cars.