Filed under: Green Culture, Green Daily, USA
2009 was not a good year for car sales. No surprises there. An interesting side effect of lowered sales last year, though, is that the total number of vehicles in the overall U.S. car fleet dropped. There were 250 million cars here in 2008, and only 246 million at the end of 2009. We may have been buying fewer cars than we usually do in a year - there were around 10 million sold in 2009 - but we still got rid of 14 million units.
Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, will be speaking to reporters Wednesday about why he thinks these numbers mean that “America’s century-old love affair with the automobile may be coming to an end.” Part of Brown’s reasoning is that he sees the shrinking U.S. fleet trend continuing through 2020 thanks to market saturation, economic uncertainty and a “declining interest in cars among young people who have grown up in cities,” among other factors. The end result? Brown believes the shrinking fleet “will also largely eliminate the need for building new streets and highways, and will set the stage for increased investment in public transit and high-speed intercity rail.” Is Brown on to something, or will a widely-expected rebound in new car sales due to pent-up demand render his argument spurious? Check out the EPI’s press release after the jump, then be sure to leave your thoughts on the matter in ‘Comments.’
[Source: Earth Policy Institute | Image: kodiax2 - C.C. License 2.0]
Report: Number of cars in the U.S. dropped by four million in 2009 - is America’s love affair ending? originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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