This article from yesterday's NYT caught my eye for a few reasons. Ignore the standard (for the last couple of decades, anyway) spectacle of General Motors's goofy effort to appeal to younger customers and check out the data:

"In 2008, 46.3 percent of potential drivers 19 years old and younger had drivers’ licenses, compared with 64.4 percent in 1998, according to the Federal Highway Administration, and drivers ages 21 to 30 drove 12 percent fewer miles in 2009 than they did in 1995.
Forty-six percent of drivers aged 18 to 24 said they would choose Internet access over owning a car, according to the research firm Gartner...In a survey of 3,000 consumers born from 1981 to 2000...Scratch asked which of 31 brands they preferred. Not one car brand ranked in the top 10"

There are certainly many possible reasons for this, but it seems pretty clear that some of it owes to young peoples' increased ambivalence towards cars and car culture as compared to previous generations.

Here's the money quote, from the consultant GM has hired to give them a, um, hip replacement. Or a relevance transfusion. Or whatever.