Millennials love cars after all

It’s not the cars themselves, but their prices, that drove the Net Generation away from motoring, according to GM’s global design boss Mike Simcoe.

The transplanted Australian, who is best known locally for the Holden Monaro but has been a Detroit-based futurist as much as a stylist since 2016, reveals to carsales.com.au that millennials are now picking up the pace.

"Turns out millennials like cars, despite all the crap," Simcoe says.

"They were always there, but they couldn’t afford them."

He says as millennials are ageing, and many now have families and live in suburbia, they have followed earlier generations into motoring.

In the USA that has meant SUVs and pick-up trucks, but Simcoe believes that is as much about the environment on the country’s roads as the needs of owners.

"If you’re driving along in a Cruze hatch, and you look in the mirror and see a Silverado coming up behind you, how are you going to feel?

"If you had to choose one vehicle, particularly where it is cold and wet and dirty, and you want to carry the kids, a small or mid-sized SUV is now the family wagon of the past."

GM has attempted to bait millennials a number of times, including with their Code 130R and 140S coupe concept vehicles at the Detroit Motor Show back in 2012. It never intended to put those cars into production, instead using them as a way to collect feedback on their design - one was retro-ish and the other was edgy and futuristic.

As it turns out, and time has moved on, millennials are showing the same sort of buying preferences as drivers from earlier generations.

But things are still changing as the world moves towards electric cars, autonomy and car-sharing.

"The wealthiest generation is now getting older," Simcoe says, referring to Baby Boomers.

"But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an interest in some form of autonomy. So depending on where electrification goes, things could be very different.

"As we move into different forms of propulsion anything can happen."