No one buys new cars - and here's why

Apparently the new car sales in Germany have dropped by 10,4% in August compared to August last year. The situation is more or less the same in the rest of Europe, and the US. The car manufacturers seem to be blaming the world economy, but the answer is probably more simple than that:

After the oil price surge this spring, and promises from the infamous oil cartel to keep the prices on a ridiculously high level of over $100 a barrel by reducing production when necessary, what people want is as much independence from the oil as possible. In other words, we're all sitting and waiting for all the interesting new car models that are just being postponed over and over again: The electric vehicles, the plug-in hybrids, the cars that run on alternative fuels. As an example, Volkswagen appear to have postponed their Golf plug-in hybrid until 2012. That will definitly cut into the Golf sales up until then.

So, in short: Give us the cars we want, and we'll buy them. Keep postponing them, and we'll keep postponing our car purchases.