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Comment by cenhyperion | Hacker News Reader

“We just think nobody truly understands them yet.”

I don't think that's true. I think that auto manufacturers don't want to accept that millennials don't associate cars with freedom, independence, maturity, and sex in the same way that cars were viewed by previous generations.

At most they're a way to get from point A to B for most millennials, at worst (if you're a car maker) they're viewed as dirty machines that the world would be better without.

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>>“We just think nobody truly understands them yet.”

>I don't think that's true.

What they actually meant to say was:

"We just think nobody has figured out to convince them to buy crap they don't need like they did their parents. We're working on it, hard."

It's always weird to hear other GenY say this. At least for me, growing up cars were exactly all of those things.

Maybe it's because they were nearly ubiquitous in the middle-class part of suburban Houston I grew up in, but even though lots of people hard cars, I somehow didn't really associate any status with them. Someone always had a car, and if you didn't, someone would pick you up. Nobody except rich kids owned their own cars, so you weren't driving anything particularly interesting anyway, just your mom's station wagon. As long as one person in your circle of friends had use of a car for the day/evening, they could pick everyone up, and it served the utilitarian purpose of covering the long-ass distances between stuff, which were impractical to bike or walk (and of course there was no public transport).

Sure, cars weren't status symbols to me or my friends, and I didn't meant to say they were. I said cars were everything my comment's parent listed- notice that comment didn't list "status symbol".

If I want the "freedom feeling" of the open road and the wind in my hair, I'll get a moped or motorcycle, and ride it in some backwoods location where joyriding doesn't actually mean getting hit by an irritated commuter.

Oh, it wasn't "freedom of open spaces", it was "freedom of travel". A large part of being a teenager is "discovery". As a young teenager, my range was effectively limited to where I could pedal. The "freedom" was the world I discovered once I gained access to four wheels. The beach, San Francisco, San Jose, the mountains, and even simply staying out late (I hated biking home at night)

It's good to know I'm not the only one who feels this way. I really hate having my travel restricted by bus stops and time tables.

I'm a Gen X'er and I totally think this way. I'm not sure how many X/Y'ers pay attention but I know some of us also lay a lot of blame on the car markers for shaping our cities into the car focused messes they are today.

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