Carmakers Try to Figure Out the New Generation

Among car companies, which are displaying their latest products at the Paris Motor Show now under way, there is a growing recognition that young people may simply not care about cars as much as their elders. Smartphones now rival automobiles as the default symbol of adulthood, and the portals to the world beyond home and school. Electronic technology competes ever more for the younger generation’s disposable income.

As a result, in Paris automakers seem to spend more time talking about how well their cars interact with an iPhone than they do about engine performance. Connectivity is the new horsepower.

“Before we talked about steering, ride and all those elements,” said Gunnar Herrmann, vice president for quality at Ford of Europe. “You could argue those are dropping down in importance. Connectivity is getting more important.”

That means not only docks for smartphones but also technology like voice recognition to allow devices to be used while driving, or Internet radios that can stay tuned to the hometown station even when hundreds of miles away. Audi showed a concept car in Paris with onboard Wi-Fi so that passengers could remain connected while on the road.

In essence, for the generation of mobile apps, carmakers are offering app-mobiles.

“I think it’s true that the generation coming up now, who will be the car buyers for the next 20 years, are fairly unique,” said Douglas C. Speck, senior vice president for marketing and sales at Volvo. “They grew up in a world where computers and cellphones and connectivity all came together at the same time.”

Few auto executives are ready to concede that young people will not want actual cars.

“‘They like iPhones and iPods more than they like cars’ — you hear that,” said Ralf D. Speth, chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, which is undergoing a renaissance due to investment from its new owner, Tata Motors of India. But, he said in an interview here, “everyone still needs to get from A to B.”

There is a consensus, though, that younger buyers will want to get from A to B in a different kind of car. It must be more stylish. Performance is still important, but it must come wrapped in technology that appears more environmentally responsible.

“They like technology. They like innovation. They like design,” said Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the chairman of Ferrari, who noted that many of the company’s U.S. customers were young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.

The shift in the market reflects not only competition from smartphones and other technology, but also the growth in the number of people around the globe who are living in urban areas. Cars are often unnecessary or even burdensome in places where there is good mass transit or networks of bicycle lanes of the kind that cities like New York and Paris have expanded in recent years.

If a younger urban buyer wants any vehicle, it may be a fashionable small car like a BMW Mini or Daimler Smart that is easier to park, or even a radical new vehicle like the battery-powered Renault Twizy, which is beginning to appear on Paris streets. Half scooter, the narrow Twizy has four wheels, but the passenger seat is behind the driver.

Younger buyers, raised in a social-networking environment, may also be more open to car sharing as an alternative to car ownership. Rental car companies and car-sharing services like the municipal Autolib’ in Paris or the commercial Zipcar in the United States may become even more important as fleet buyers.

The digitally distracted consumer, meantime, may be happy to embrace cars that can drive themselves, freeing the driver to concentrate on Facebook, Twitter or whatever social media may be prevalent when self-driving technologies mature in a decade or so. (Google has already built working prototypes.)

More immediately, manufacturers are trying to find ways to balance the craving for constant connectivity with the need for drivers to keep their eyes on the road. Voice recognition technology is already available in cars by Volvo and others as a way to operate some of the onboard electronics, and will become more sophisticated. BMW and others have heads-up displays that project information on the windshield in the driver’s line of sight. These technologies are likely to become less expensive and more common.