Why are Passenger Cars an Endangered Species? A Demographer You’ve Never Heard Of Just Might, Indirectly, Hold the Key

Photo: GM media website.

Unless you’re a hardcore demographics geek like me, you’ve probably never heard of Kenneth W. Gronbach. If you have heard of him, chances are you’re a regular listener to Coast to Coast AM, the popular nationally syndicated talk radio show, on which Gronbach has been interviewed a couple of times by host George Noory.


But regardless of whether you’ve heard of him, Kenneth W. Gronbach, author of Upside: Profiting from the Profound Demographic Shifts Ahead, just might be the most important demographer alive. And his take on millennials, the generation that has overtaken baby boomers as the largest demographic group in the U.S., just might go a long way toward explaining the ongoing decline of the traditional passenger car or sedan—a phenomenon that we at Auto Enthusiasts Newsblaster like to call #DeathOfCar.

If you’re like Kenneth Gronbach, you understand that one of the most dangerous errors of omission that any enterprise can make is to have an incomplete or oversimplified understanding of how demographic factors can profoundly affect economic trends and business outcomes.

In his talk-show appearances, Mr. Gronbach relates that he learned this lesson the hard way. In his days as an advertising-agency owner, he gained a first-hand understanding of the importance of demographics when he lost a large client in the motorcycle industry.