Economical Car Culture
In the future it will be socially unacceptable to drive a vehicle with bad fuel efficiency. You'll be looked down upon like you're a cousin kissing, uncultured neanderthal. Your friends will talk about you behind your back. When you park your evil car on the road it might be attacked by green extremists. An economical car culture is definitely on the rise. Forget about supercars - driving fuel efficient vehicles is slowly turning into the new cool.Many people think this change in society is further along than I do. I think its still in its infancy. The day of not being able to drive your V8 for fear of ridicule is not quite here yet. As a society I actually don't think we're as green as we like to think we are. I think we're fundamentally selfish and still think primarily of ourselves, not of the planet.
An example of our selfishness is when fuel prices shot sky high during 2009. In Australia V8 car sales rose to all time highs. At first this seems counter intuitive but people were worried that it could be the last time they could own a V8. They thought this for two reasons. First of all, with no end in sight to the rising fuel prices they thought if they don't buy a thirsty V8 now they won't be able to afford to do so in the future. Secondly they thought that maybe car makers would stop building V8 cars altogether.
Currently when we think about economical cars I believe we're thinking about our wallet. Internet searches for "car fuel mileage" rise and fall as petrol prices rise and fall. We're thinking about saving cash not saving the planet. When fuel prices are low we're pretty happy with our uneconomical cars. I honestly think the majority of people won't buy fuel efficient cars for the planets sake alone.
When the Toyota Prius first came out, movie stars and entertainers flocked to purchase it. Because they wanted to save the planet? Not for most, whose garages also contained Hummers and Ferrari's. They did it because suddenly it became cool. And this has driven economical car culture on to new heights. If you look around the largest cities in the world today, the young & wealthy are often driving the latest hybrid or small fuel efficient car. These vehicles are becoming extremely cool.
Sales of economical cars are going to continue to climb at a proportionately higher rate than total car sales. This will be because of rising fuel prices of course, but also because eco cars are becoming fashionable there is going to be a shift in thinking which makes it socially unacceptable to drive unenvironmental cars. Rather than this social shift occurring because your average person wants to save the planet, I think it will be because they won't want to be outcast by society.
Whatever the main driving force will be we're definitely going to see more and more environmentally friendly cars in the future which is great for the planet and great for our wallets.
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