Japan Car Sales In Reverse

Japanese domestic car sales are in decline, as young people would rather use bicycles and use public transportation and spend their money on other things. The car is no longer viewed as a status symbol, but rather a big money drain. As a result new car sales in Japan are at a 35 year low.

Not good news for car manufactures but great news for the local environment since, as other posts on this blog point out, trains and bicycles are hundreds of times more efficient and less polluting than cars.
Toyota, which nearly topped General Motors in worldwide car sales last year, saw its domestic sales fall by 6%. Mitsubishi's global sales rose 13% in the first three quarters of 2007 over 2006, but lost 11% of sales at home.

According to an article in The Age (Australia):

"Between 2001 and 2005, the proportion of men in the first half of their 20s without a car rose from one in five to one in three, a Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association survey found. Ownership rates did not change among older generations.

"Over roughly the same period, spending by 20- to 35-year-olds on car-related expenses fell 15%, according to a government poll of family budgets."

Yours truly is well past his 20's, but has seen the light. I haven't owned a car in over 3 years....