Popular Science had a “Rants” article this month entitled “Why You Can’t Sell Me A Car,” and we believe that every automotive professional should consider reading it. The author, Dave Mosher, is the son of an automotive shop owner who grew up with men explaining auto care to him while the shop functioned as his daycare center. Despite fond memories of the car parts, grease, and a Boy Scout automotive badge, the author has a huge problem with the modern automotive industry: there isn’t a single car that he wants to buy. Here are a few of the problems Mosher discusses and what we can do about them.
“Lose the driver’s seat… Put robots in charge.”
We understand exactly what Mr. Mosher is talking about. When he discusses the need to automate driving cars, he focuses on safety, in particular the fact that 39,000 individuals died in car accidents last year. Robot-controlled cars may still be years away, though, so we should consider a few things. First, California is actually well below the national average for fatalities per 100 million miles driven. In 2011, our state had one of the lowest rates of traffic fatalities since the government started keeping statistics in 1975, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety. Mosher has a valid point about texting drivers causing some of those 39,000 crashes and texting convictions increased 42 percent between 2011 and 2012. However, California has banned both talking on hand-held phones and texting, with tickets starting at $159 for a first offense, and we have great hopes that we’ll see a decrease as ticket prices and enforcement really take effect.
“Don’t make me wreck the planet.”
Mosher makes several interesting environmental points in his article. He believes a “green” car isn’t enough for educated millennials, who realize the materials to make the car are still taxing the planet to produce or mine and the energy to charge electric cars are currently still coming from fossil fuels until renewable energy is more advanced. Mosher may not realize, since it isn’t highly publicized, that the auto industry is actually an extremely efficient recycler with 86% of car parts being either reused or recycled. The truth is that recycling is profitable, and can be significantly more cost efficient than, say, the expensive and unsustainable process of trying to mine steel. California is also at the cutting edge of sorting out renewable energy, so that electric cars will actually be “green,” instead of running on electricity that is still produced by fossil fuels. Just a few weeks ago, what was hailed as a “groundbreaking proposal” was unanimously approved by state regulators that requires California utility companies to expand their ability to store energy, including from renewable sources. This will allow for the storage of energy produced by solar and wind sources to be used in periods when those sources aren’t producing as much.
As automotive care professionals, we support some of the ways that our state is addressing Mr. Mosher’s concerns about why millennials are no longer interested in buying cars. Hopefully, with new ideas for energy and safety, driving can be accessible and fun again.
