Cars become place for passengers’ private moments

Volkswagen AG announced that 2019 would be the last model year the Golf SportWagen and Alltrack, the automaker’s station wagons, will be produced for the US. The German company has sold wagons in the US since 1966, starting with the Type 3 “Squareback” model. “Customers are speaking clearly about their preferences — it’s an SUV world now,” the company said in a news release. The data agree with VW, as I noted last year.
As wagon models become scarce and the US becomes more enamoured of sport utility vehicles, there’s another type of car that’s going away, too: the convertible. Five years ago, convertibles made up less than a percent of US auto sales, according to Edmunds; through the first four months of this year, they were barely six-tenths of a percent of total sales.
Station wagons and convertibles are probably as far apart on the spectrum of practicality as they can be, and convertibles’ diminished presence in buying behaviour is a testament to the appeal of the SUV at the expense of other models. SUVs are probably more comfortable than a convertible for a long slog through commuter traffic, and they’re considered safer, too (though perhaps at theexpense of those outside the vehicle).
I’m not quite willing to say that SUVs will take over the world, though. In a driving-as-a-service future that also includes autonomous vehicles, the needs and wants of passengers may become more important than those of drivers. NTT Docomo Inc., which operates a vehicle-sharing service in Japan, recently noted some fascinating customer behaviours. A 2018 survey of 400 users found that 1 in 8 rented automobiles for purposes other than transportation.
An overwhelmingly large number of respondents said they slept or rested in vehicles, followed by customers who said they used cars as spots to talk with friends, family and business clients on the phone.
People also rented vehicles to watch TV in, get dressed up for Halloween, practice singing, rapping and English conversation, and even do facial stretches said to reduce the size of their face, NTT found. “Cars can be used for private space,” said the NTT Docomo official in charge of the study. “People used our vehicles in more ways than we expected.”

—Bloomberg