Has anyone made this comparison yet?

Early 1900's: Traveling and owning a Horse is common place. Blacksmiths, and the like are everywhere. Numerous Tact shops are strung out across the country. Cars and Motorcycles come around and practically wipe out horse ownership,riding,blacksmiths, tact shops over a 20-30 year period. Horseback riding becomes a relic.

2020: Self driving cars come online. Car ownership and purchasing start to nose dive as Uber and Lyft ride share programs take over. Motorcycle purchasing nosedives, dealerships close as they cannot sustain the overhead while moving significantly less product. Driving cars and riding motorcycles become a relic.

In short, if you want to see the future, compare blacksmiths and tact shops to Harley Davidson/Harley Dealerships. The blacksmiths and tact shops did not totally disappear, 9 out of 10 did. Harley/Ford/GM/Chrysler will have the same fate. Become a relic for only hobbyists to enjoy.

Anyone want to place bets?

 

I'll be 80 years old and won't give a crap.
if I can, I will still ride.

 

Could happen but not in my lifetime your time frames off by 20 years at least, big oil ain't gonna let go that easy trust me.

 

Not sure of the figures but given the money involved in that industry I think I'll be dead and gone before that happens.

 

If you don't think big oil has moved into big electric, your sorely mistaken. 10 years and this will be a different world.

 

Guy I work for Tesla and I've lived in Silicon Valley the last 30 years, I see it changing daily but I've also been around several decades, IC engines are far from done trust me on that.

 

Ten years? They've been saying that since before I had hair on my *****.

Perhaps I should have used a little more tact.

Oh, and there are still some tack shops around.

 

Never said anything about IC vs Electric.

What I'm trying to say is, Harley as well as the automotive industry will become relics.

Look at Ford and GM's latest extreme cost cutting and production shifting. They see the writing on the wall and are trying to get ahead of it.

 

Been in or around the auto building industry 40 some years, suspect if you were a bit older you'd have seen this a couple times over already, I have. Ebb & flow, boom times then belt tightening, nature of the game and harleys been heading for a slow down for years that was just a matter of time. Under 30's aren't drawn cars or bikes like past generations were so of course consolidation is going to happen. Relics, not for many years to come.

Bottom line is we can't survive without cars & bikes as yet, mass transit, workable alternative transportation and bulk materials moving infrastructure just to name a few isn't there to replace them and won't be for decades.

One last thing F**K GM.