Uber CEO says Rideshare has “freed” his son from not having to obtain a driver’s license.

• Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s son doesn’t have a driver’s license yetdespite being over 18, he told Verge decoder Podcast. According to Uber Boss, his son is one of many teenagers who have moved away from learning to drive, drive and own a car due to the rise of ridesharing. For a long time, Uber has been touting the possibility of disrupting ownership of cars.

According to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Gen Z is away from licensing drivers as they can get ride shares instead. His own son is no exception.

While licensing for Khosrowshahi, the “life goal” representing freedom is that his son took over the teenage benchmark, he told Verge’s decoder Podcasts last week. The son of Uber CEO is one of the waves of teenagers who embrace the convenience of ride-sharing over owning a car, Khosrowshahi noted.

“This makes me crazy,” Khosrowshahi said. “My son is over 18. I’m still trying to get my son a driver’s license, but Uber has released him.”

According to Khosrowshahi, the convenience of ridesharing for younger generations is that it “has an absolute impact on car ownership.”

In fact, between 1983 and 2022, the number of 18-year-olds with US driver’s licenses fell from 80% to 60%. data From the Federal Highways Office of the U.S. Department of Transportation. Since 2000, its share among 16 years olds has fallen by more than a quarter.

Young people’s indifference to driving exceeds ride-sharing opportunities today. 2013 study At the University of Michigan, surveying 618 adults without a driver’s license, found that 37% of respondents were too busy to get a license, while 32% said that the vehicle was too expensive to own and maintain. About a third said they would ride from others. Khosrowshahi speculated that increased urbanization could also be a factor that contributes to Gen Z’s ride-sharing preferences.

“My parents put a lot of pressure on me,” says one of the 24-year-olds from Philadelphia. I said Washington Post last year. “But I don’t need to go all the way to this point. If there’s an emergency, I’ll call Uber or 911.”

Uber did not respond luckRequest a comment.

The future of car ownership

Despite Khosrowshahi skips what his son considered a teenage rite of passage, his hopes for the future of Uber depend on Gen Z continuing to avoid driving. The CEO has long promoted ride-sharing possibilities that disrupt the appeal of car ownership. In 2019, ahead of Uber’s IPO, he said his company would become owner of the car. Netflix Other streaming services It’s a cablerobs the opportunity to use products that were once considered unnegotiable.

“We and our competition are slowly bundling what I call a car bundle,” Khosrowshahi He told CNBC at that time. “Now you don’t have to use your car to go out for dinner, or you don’t need to use your car to take your child to school. Each of these has been replaced by opportunities in demand.”

According to the Federal Highway Administration, vehicle registrations in the US increased from around 263 million in 2015 to over 284 million in 2023, as ride-sharing giant banks buy fewer vehicles, and fewer vehicles buyers. data. However, the age of vehicles on the road continues to rise according to S&P Global datasuggesting that economic pressure could discourage consumers from buying cars at the current pace.

Uber is trying to capitalize on the continued fear of consumers about the economy. “Route Sharing” feature It offers shuttle services along fixed routes at a cost that is more affordable for commuters. Critics have I laughed out the feature It’s simply trying to replicate public transport, Khosrowshahi said decoder Uber is not interested in competing with mass transport. He instead said he considers route sharing to be complementary to taking buses and trains.

Rideshahi argued that ridesharing companies are focusing on eliminating the need for new vehicles on the roads.

“It takes a lot of work to get there,” he said. “We are a very large company, but less than 3% of the miles we’ve been traveling the road.”

This story was originally introduced Fortune.com