At a major conference last year, Toyota USA President Jim Lentz offered up a fairly doleful summary of the industry's challenge.

"We have to face the growing reality that today young people don't seem to be as interested in cars as previous generations," Lentz said. "Many young people care more about buying the latest smart phone or gaming console than getting their driver's license."

The billion-dollar question for automakers is whether this shift is truly permanent, the result of a baked-in attitude shift among Millennials that will last well into adulthood, or the product of an economy that's been particularly brutal on the young.

GENERATION WALK



There are plenty of reasons to suspect the latter. The Millennials have become notorious for delaying, or entirely skipping, the traditional markers of adulthood. But as my colleague Derek Thompson has argued, that's largely because the economic milieu that shaped their parents' and and grandparents' lives has disappeared. How can you buy a home when you're underemployed and saddled with student debt? Why would you want to after the horror of the collapsing housing bubble? And why would a 25-year-old woman get married when so many of the men she knows are out of work, while she's financially independent?

Collectively, the Millennials still have a tremendous amount of spending money. But although they may have been synonymous with youth culture way back in the 20th century, cars are extremely adult investments -- exactly the type twenty-somethings tend to shy from now. Even a bottom-tier Kia Sedan will run you $12,000, not counting the monthly cost of insurance, repairs, and filling up on $3.90-a-gallon gasoline. If there are reasonable, nearby alternatives to owning -- say, paying for a Zip Car membership, or taking the subway -- why commit to the expense?

Of course, Millennials are more likely than past generations to live in an urban community, and this may be part of what terrifies car markers. About 32 percent reside in cities, somewhat higher than the proportion of Generation X'ers or Baby Boomers who did when they were the same age, according to a 2009 Pew Research Center report. But as the Wall Street Journal reports, surveys have found that 88 percent want to live in an urban environment. When they're forced to settle down in a suburb, they prefer communities like Bethesda, Maryland, or Arlington, Virginia, which feature plenty of walking distance restaurants, retail, and public transportation to nearby Washington, DC.

If the Millennials truly become the peripatetic generation, walking to the office, the bus stop, or the corner store, it could mean a longterm dent in car sales. It's doubly problematic if they choose to raise children in the city. Growing up in the 'burbs was part of the reason driving was so central to Baby Boomers' lives. Car keys meant freedom. To city dwellers, they mean struggling to find an empty parking spot.