If you stop at Porte Maillot, on the inner ring road of Paris, late on a Friday afternoon you will see dozens of cars pausing to pick up complete strangers and their luggage, then setting off to some weekend destination, reports The Guardian.
The huge roundabout, one of the capital’s main hubs for co-voiturage, or carpooling, is a good indication of how people’s attitude to cars has changed. The car is still an essential form of private transport, but its social value now finds an outlet in collective use. Carpooling, which is more economical, flexible and sociable than travelling alone, is one of the more visible aspects of a profound change also reflected in the growth of car-sharing (short-term rental) and peer-to-peer sharing.
Car-sharing services such as BlaBlaCar (10 million members in 13 European countries) or Autolib’ (170,000 subscribers in Paris) have become popular for a growing number of people, particularly the young and urban. The trend raises many questions about the shifting status and dented image of an object that made such a deep mark on the 20th century.
Leading brands acknowledge the crisis in the perception of motor vehicles in Europe and, to a lesser extent, in the United States. Fortunately for them, consumers in Russia, China, India and Brazil, among others, see things differently.
In western Europe there is plenty to suggest that interest in cars is cooling. Predictably the economic crisis has had an impact, but the experts report that the market overreacted to the downturn. “Car sales in the European Union, between 2007 and 2013, fell by almost 25%. Though the economic climate is expected to improve, we do not expect to see a return to pre-crisis volumes,” says Michel Costes, head of specialist consultants Inovev. Substantial investment in public transport has also contributed to a gradual decline in household spending on new cars.
One revealing sign is that, despite the price of cars having dropped in relation to average wages, most consumers think that replacing their vehicle is “beyond their means”. “The French have opted to spend more on other items such as homes and their upkeep, entertainment and information technology. Car ownership currently accounts for about 14% of average spending and is seen by a growing number of households as a burden,” says Rémi Cornubert, a specialist on automobile trends at analysts Oliver Wyman.
“The French love their cars,” President Georges Pompidou asserted in the early 1970s, but these days few people would endorse such a claim.