10:25 am, July 15, 2024
The desire to own a car among young people is growing not falling a new survey has found, but the car industry needs to help make the car buying process easier.
That’s the verdict from Auto Trader. The platform quizzed 2,000 17-24-year-olds and 90% said car ownership was important to them.
However, while there is a strong desire to own a car, barriers such as driving test back logs, increased insurance premiums and rising used car costs are only increasing.
Auto Trader found that of the 2,000 people surveyed, 70% cited the need to ‘get around’, and 67% said ‘independence’ was their primary reason for wanting a car.
However, this age group isn’t motivated just for practical reasons, said the company. Over half (54%) said they want their own set of wheels for the pure enjoyment of driving.
Unreliable public transport was a major reason, too, with 50% quoting this factor, and 80% pointed specifically to the ongoing train strikes.
The need for ownership shows no sign of waning among this age group, too.
Some 70% of the 17-24-year-olds surveyed said that having their own car has become even more important over the last 12 months, which is more than double the percentage of drivers aged over 45 (31%) who felt the same.
Young people also believe they’re driving more, with nearly four times the proportion of young people (43%) claiming to use their car more today than they did a year ago compared to their older counterparts (12%).
While demand remains exceptionally strong among young people, they’re facing growing challenges to getting behind the wheel, the survey found.
The DVLA forecasts the already lengthy backlog for driving tests is only set to grow, with current estimates suggesting that by the end of 2025, the gap between demand for tests and the number available will be over 1,100,000.
A ‘dearth’ of affordable cars is also ‘pricing’ youngsters ‘out of the market’, said Auto Trader, due to a shortage of cars built during the Covid-impacted years.
While most (58%) of the 17-24s surveyed who had already bought a car had paid less than £11,000, the volume of stock on Auto Trader in this price bracket has fallen by almost half (46%) since January 2016, said the firm.
During the same time frame, stock levels on Auto Trader in the under £5,000 price bracket have dropped by three quarters (75%).
Rising insurance costs are another key barrier, too – 18-year-olds have seen their premiums increase 84% over the last 12 months, whilst the average 17-year-old has faced a hike of 98%.
Auto Trader has called for the industry to to assist young people into car ownership by removing traditional obstacles that disproportionately affect younger buyers – and this includes improving transparency around finance.
Auto Trader research shows younger drivers want to complete more of the car buying journey digitally; over half (53%) have checked if a car advertised online is available versus a fifth of over 65-year-olds, whilst 42% want to complete tasks online, such as paying a deposit to reserve a car versus 26% of older drivers.
Auto Trader’s head of strategy & insight, Marc Palmer, said: ‘There’s been some recent suggestion that young people aren’t interested in having their own car anymore, but that simply isn’t the case.
‘The desire for the independence and freedom that a car offers is as strong, if not stronger, for young people today than it has been for decades.
‘But what has changed is how difficult it is to get behind the wheel of their first car, which we as an industry need to respond to.
‘Unless we make the car buying process more transparent, more convenient and more sensitive to the barriers young people currently face, an important and growing audience will struggle to enter the market.’
