Easy Rider or Ease of Riding? Consumers have long ad a love affair with driving. Driving a car represented freedom! A 1960s movie called Easy Rider particularly glorified motorbike riding. In 2017. Mercedes Benz resurrected Easy Rider for a Super Bowl spot where the star of the movie, Peter Fo nda, drives off excitedly in his Mercedes AMG Convertible. Americans love to drive.I Or do they? A number of changes may potentially change things. One. Americans are getting older. As baby boomers move on and are replaced by millennials as the biggest consumer segment, some analysts suggest that they are less excited about owning automobiles. Two. ride-sharing is common and has come to represent the consumer sharing economy. Perhaps the idea of sharing rides may become more appealing to certain generations to free them from the responsibilities and hassles of car ownership. Three, self-driving technologies are fast evolving. Many autos are virtually capable of driving themselves and the idea of a driverless car seems inevitable. In the face of all this. marketers continue to look for opportunities in the marketplace. One technology that exists in concept in the United States and as a reality in many parts of the world is the single-passenger automobile. Brand names like Elio and Solo have produced test cars, and international brands like India's Alibaba already offer single-passenger automobiles. In fact. the brand Cushman specialized in single-passenger utility vehicles in the United States in the mid- twentieth century. Suppose you are asked to conduct a research project exploring the idea of a single- passenger sports car for the U.S. market In particular, the entrepreneur launching the idea believes that younger. single consumers are the most attractive consumer market. The entrepreneur believes there is a sweet spot in the market willing to pay a bit of a premium for a sporty, fun to drive car, but unwilling to pay for self-driving technology. Most of the other single-passenger automobiles focus on utility and economy for their value propositions. Unfortunately. the entrepreneur has a limited budget and time for the project. Questions I Using secondary data sources, what data might be available that suggests millennials, demand for automobiles? What conclusions can you draw from that data? I What about generation Z? Is there data that suggests they may have different consumer preferences with respect to owning an automobile relative to millennials? I Based on your findings, what recommendations would you make to the entrepreneur? Do millennials or generation 2 represent attractive market segments for the concept