Uber might have a new enemy on its hands: the auto industry

New survey finds that Uber is causing drivers to delay buying new cars

There's been a lot written about my generation and the fact that we own far fewer cars than our parents did. There's a number of reasons for this. First is the fact that we are more environmentally concious, and don't want to harm the planet. Also there was that time when our parents generation crashed the economy and created a situation where wages remained flat over the last 30 years, yet the price of goods and services keeps rising.

In short, we don't have the money. Being to buy food and pay rent trumps being able to pay for gas and auto insurance.

Now there's another factor that has apparently caused this situation, and it is an expected one: Uber.

In a survey that was conducted by research-based consulting firm Magid Advisors, and reported by CNBC, found that not only had usage of Uber grown quite a bit over the last year, the sheer convenience of the service has made the prospect of buying a car less of an issue for a growing number of people.

Uber usage has grown from 4 percent in 2014 to 17 percent in 2015 among the 2,400 respondents that were polled for this survey. Of that number, 22 percent of Uber users aged 18 to 64 said they were delaying or holding off buying a new car and they cited Uber as the reason.

These are people, it should be noted, who have used the service in the past 6 months and it may translate to 3 or 4 million cars not being sold as a result.

This is all very interesting because of the cost factor involved in using Uber instead of a car. While a car is by no means cheap, including paying for it, covering the cost of repairs, etc, it seems unlikely that taking a $25 cab ride, at a minimum, each day, at least twice a day would be cheaper.

Counting only commutes to and from work, a $25 ride each way for 22 work days a month, would cost $1,100. Over a full year thats $13,200. And it would likely be a lot more than that.

While Uber is widely seen as a disruption to the existing taxi industry, it may find a new enemy in the auto industry if those numbers turn out to be true. Uber has likely held off any pushback from the auto sector so far because it actually encourages its drivers to buy more cars, as many use their own vehicles for their jobs.

Of course, if Uber gets its way, and the driverless car becomes the standard model, then there won't even be any Uber drivers at all.

VatorNews has reached out to Uber for comment. We will update this story if we learn more.

(Image source: bloomberg.com)