Millennials start buying cars, defying predictions

New York

IN RECENT years, it has become widely accepted that millennials don't like cars. According to conventional wisdom, the generation born from about 1980 to 2004 prefers public transportation or Uber. They get jazzed about the latest iPhone, not the new Ford Focus. Cue dire predictions for the auto industry.

Turns out the doomsayers may be wrong. Millennials - also known as Generation Y - accounted for 27 per cent of new car sales in the US last year, up from 18 per cent in 2010, according to J D Power & Associates. They've zoomed past Gen X to become the se…