Study: Nine Out Of 10 Millennials Consider Car Ownership Important
Allegedly, Millennials care only about the latest iPhone, and not the i8. Nine out of 10 Millennials would disagree, and consider car ownership important.
The statistic comes from a study by rental car company Enterprise Holdings, The Detroit Bureau says, with the indication Millennials are renting cars they might want to buy later, per fleet operations boss Kurt Kohler:
When we provide our customers with a great rental experience, it doesn’t just keep them coming back to us – it clearly sends many of them into their local dealer showrooms, as well.
Though studies like Enterprise’s are seen more as marketing tools benefiting the company than the consumer, other studies and reports point to the same conclusion: young adults want to drive, and want to own what they drive. One analysis by J.D. Power found Millennials account for 27 percent of all U.S. new car sales at present, with the cohort overtaking Baby Boomers on the sales floor by the 2020s.
Returning to Enterprise’s study, the company found 92 percent of Boomers and Millennials believe owning a car is important, compared to 73 percent in 2013. The spike is likely the result of improving fortunes among the younger cohort alongside the economy following the end of the Great Recession.
Regarding rental-to-showroom sales, 32 percent of Millennials said a positive renting experience led them down the road to their new vehicle, while 30 percent of Gen-Xers and 23 percent of Boomers though the same. Additionally, 45 percent of those surveyed said renting a car prepared them for the technologies they would find in their own vehicle.
The study is more good news for automakers as they seek to bring in more potential customers. Rather than build fleet-ready models for the sake of keeping the lights on, automakers could use the opportunity to claim those sales as marketing for the real thing, especially if they decide to add more technology to a base model to show off what they can do when it comes time to turn the renter into a buyer.
(Photo credit: Mercedes-Benz USA/ Facebook)
Seattle-based writer, blogger, and photographer for many a publication. Born in Louisville. Raised in Kansas. Where I lay my head is home.
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This is in direct conflict with those other studies which say car ownership isn't important for said group of people, and they shun ownership and don't want to drive or get a license. Depending on framing, you can get whatever results you desire. All these studies are just a joke.
I work with a lot of much younger people, I'm over twice the age of the guys I work directly with, and a couple of the things they want/wish for concern me, even though I won't be around long enough to have them affect me. 1. A couple of them really really want self driving cars, where they can sit back and play their games without having to pay attention to what's going on outside. I tell them I would probably kill myself if I had to do this, to me, driving IS the ultimate video game! 2. They don't seem to care about power at all. Or if it's decent looking. In fact, they seem to go out of their way to buy old ugly beaters that last a few years at best, and then they scrap them and buy another. A couple of them don't even know (or care) about their car being FWD or RWD. I don't think any of them have a clue about the advantages of either one. Almost everything they have ever driven is FWD and 4 cylinder. Ugg! I call these penalty cars. One guy is driving a car almost as old as he is, a 1993 Taurus, a green base car with a ticking time bomb of a motor, I keep waiting for it to finally do whatever it's going to do, but it seems to keep on going. I'm so happy I can afford to buy what I want that's new and not some throw away beater that will eventually develop some fatal motor or trans issue that will end up with it being sold to one of the recycle yards in the area, and a new beater taking it's place.