Poll Puts Another Dent in The Belief that Millennials Don’t Want to Drive

Another dent has emerged in the pervasive notion that millennials do not want cars.

A survey commissioned by San Francisco, Calif.-based NerdWallet and released today shows that the majority of millennials polled who own a car do not regret their most recent vehicle purchase and that they see themselves buying another automobile in coming years.

The survey was conducted for NerdWallet by Nielsen’s Harris Poll division in August and included 2,025 American adults ages 18 and older.

Of those polled, 454 were millennials (ages 18 to 34). Out of that group, 383 were car-owning millennials, 80 percent of whom disagreed with the statement “Owning a vehicle is not worth the money.” This is despite a great number of them expressing surprise over the costs associated with auto ownership, according to the survey.

The NerdWallet survey isn’t the first to tap the breaks on the popular belief that millennials could become an increasingly smaller segment of the total car-buying population.

Data from online loan marketplace LendingTree released in May shows the share of auto loan requests from millennials has been increasing in recent years. That data shows the share of millennial auto loan requests climbed from roughly 27 percent in early 2013 to about 34 percent in 2016.

“People were circulating the idea millennials don’t want to own a car,” said Elizabeth Renter, a staff writer at NerdWallet. “I think that’s changing.”

That millennials still want cars wasn’t as intriguing to Renter as another finding in the survey.

“What surprised me the most is that the millennials are surprised by the cost of owning a vehicle,” she said.

More than six-in-10 were surprised at the cost of maintenance (64 percent) and the cost car insurance (68 percent), the survey shows.

A possible explanation for this is that these drivers pay an average of 15 percent more in insurance premiums than peers nearly twice their age, according to NerdWallet data.

The company said it got that particular data from Quadrant Information Services, which obtains its data from carriers and filings that carriers must make with each state’s department of insurance.

That data shows a typical 26-year-old in California pays 18 percent more than a typical 40-year-old. The average premium difference between the two ages among all the states where data was examined was 15 percent, according to NerdWallet. States included were: California; Florida; Georgia; Illinois; Michigan; Ohio; Pennsylvania; and Texas.

Many millennials also seem to feel owning a car can be a pain. The survey shows 45 percent believe car ownership is a hassle compared with 28 percent of those age 45 and older.

Hassle or not, just 9 percent of car-owning millennials said they have considered selling their vehicle for a cheaper option, such as public transport or ridesharing. And only 17 percent said that increases in car-related costs would motivate them to give up their wheels.

Maybe millennials, like so many in the driving public before them, are just embracing the freedom of the road.

Eighty-four percent of millennial car owners agreed with the statement “I enjoy driving,” and 48 percent agreed strongly.

Related:

• Loan Data Discredits View That Millennials Do Not Want Cars
• Millennials Prefer Usage-Based Insurance: Survey
• Driverless Cars to Slash U.S. Auto Insurance Premiums
• Insurance Industry Not Alone in Missing the Mark with Millennials

Topics Auto