Nearly Half of Young Americans Don’t Want To Own a Car: Survey

When properly conducted, studies and surveys can teach us a lot about the trends shaping the automotive industry. We know that Americans don’t fully trust self-driving cars, that they still want gasoline cars, and that they think passenger screens in cars are useless. Crucially, we also know the best setup to own Mario Kart 8. There’s a new survey out, and it suggests that a large percentage of young Americans are not interested in owning a car.

The question was relatively straightforward: To what extent would you be willing to give up vehicle ownership in favor of a fully available mobility-as-a-service (MAAS) solution going forward? Deloitte interviewed 286 people aged 18 to 34 in the United States, 392 people from the same age group in the United Kingdom, 2,116 in Southeast Asia, 246 in South Korea, 191 in Japan, 404 in India, 344 in Germany, and 261 in China.

At least a third of participants in every region replied that they were somewhat willing, willing, or very willing to no longer own a car. In the United States, 44% of respondents said they were ready to give up car ownership. For context, the survey’s lowest figure is 35%, which is attributed to Autobahn-loving Germans. At the other end of the spectrum, a whopping 70% of the folks surveyed in India would prefer a MaaS solution.

Enthusiasts will likely find the results inexplicable at best and alarming at worst, but there are several points to keep in mind. First, the sample size is small considering there are over 334 million people living in the United States. Second, we’d be curious to know more about the folks surveyed. Do they live in New York City, where driving is a chore, or do they live six miles away from the exact middle of nowhere in Oklahoma, where driving is an absolute necessity? Third, the gap between “somewhat willing” and “very willing” is not an insignificant one.

We’re not discounting the survey’s findings. We’re pointing out that it’s a topic that deserves a deeper dive.

The same survey shed light on several other automotive topics, including electric cars and autonomous technology. Of the 937 people surveyed in the United States, 62% said they’d prefer that their next car be powered by a gasoline- or diesel-burning engine. Merely 5% said they want an EV, 20% said they want a hybrid, and 6% said they want a plug-in hybrid. It sounds like this question was asked to consumers of all ages.

Perhaps more tellingly, 52% of the 937 Americans surveyed said they were concerned about fully autonomous robotaxis operating where they live, and 64% said they were concerned about commercial vehicles operating in fully autonomous mode on the highway. So while the idea of ride-hailing is catching on, especially among younger people, the idea of autonomous shuttles isn’t quite ready to merge into the mainstream.

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