Why aren't new cars selling? Is the car the problem?

I guess you have chosen to ignore the other 999,999,999,999,999 factors that influence our economy. After all, the economy crashed in spite of George W. Bush’s tax cuts.

During the W. Bush years, adjusted for inflation, income was flat. Add to that the increased cost of healthcare, and subtract W’s tax cuts, and you will plainly see that the rising cost of healthcare had much more negative impact on our disposable income than taxes.

Some people just hate paying taxes. These folks are willing to blame taxes for everything, even if other issues were bigger contributors to our problems.

I agree with you that the car and service industry is not a good place to invest your money. As for new services when Electic vehicles replace IC engines, all cars have BRAKES, SHOCK ABSORBERS, STEERING SYSTEMS, FRONT and REAR SUPENSION SYTEMS, ELECTRCAL GEAR (WIPERS MOTORS, WINDOW OPNERS,ETC), CLIMATE CONTROL, and a whole raft of electronics.

Looking back through my service records of one of our 15 year old cars, the only I/C related repairs were a new radiator, fix a leaking front engine bearing, and spark plugs. All other REPAIRS were chassis, electrical, body and instrumentation.An electric car will still need all those.

I beg to differ with you what the future cars will use for propulsion. It will be a split between electric (including plug-in hybrid)and fuel cells. Fuel cells generate electricity directly from hydrogen and oxygen, but will still need maintenance on the cells and the gas systems.Plug-in hybrids will still need some engine work done.

I agree that Jiffy Lube may have a tough time 30 years from now when the industry has changed over from gasoline-only propulsion. They will have to change their service mix. In my town there are 2 shops called Auto-Temp. These guys only do air conditioning, audios, cruise controls, and other electronic stuff. NO ENGINE OR TRANSMISSION WORK! They are very busy.

In other words, today’s cars can go without serious engine work during their lifetime with proper maintenance. The need for oil changes and such things has already decreased since the sixties, that’s why most “service” stations provide no service, but sell gas, oil, videos, magazines, coffee, sub sandwiches, etc. In other words, they are servicing the DRIVER!

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Due to both govt regulations and car makers desire to put as much gadgets into all cars, the price of cars keeps going up and the wages just don’t keep up with this, result less people affording new cars and instead buying used ones.These companies are gonna be in for a second wave of poor sales when you got Chinese and Indian manufacturers coming in with cheaper products that people actually want to buy, They’re going to have to go to the drawing board and start designing and building simpler vehicles