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What Type of Person Buys a Hybrid Car. You'd Be Surprised. January 2005Hybrid car buyers pay a premium of a couple of thousand extra dollars over what others are paying for a comparable car. By most calculations, this extra expense will not be recouped in gas savings by the owner. What kind of person spends that extra money and why?Theres been a lot of publicity related to celebrities who drive hybrids. The list reportedly includes Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Sting, Cameron Diaz, Tim Robbins and Leonardo DeCaprio. With over 100,000 hybrids on the road, and this number roughly doubling every year, the legions of hybrid car drivers certainly include regular folks too. But again, who are they? Hybrid car drivers have a level of education higher than any group of car drivers that Ive ever seen, says Walter McManus, Executive Director of Global Forecasting, JD Power and Associates. McManus further describes these drivers: * They have higher income, much higher than the average car buyerapproximately $100,000 a year versus $85,000 a year for the average buyer. * Theyre more likely to be female. * Hybrid drivers are a few years older than the average car buyercloser to fifty rather than the average age of forty. Beyond these demographics, McManus describes the profile of hybrid car drivers in terms of their behavior and attitudes: * They drive fewer miles on average * Hybrid car drivers plan to keep their car longer than the average persona little more than five years rather than less than five years * They are willing to pay more for an environmentally-friendly (or green ) product. * They personally want to do something to help reduce vehicle pollution. The majority of people dont, but they do says McManus. * They expect fuel prices to grow a lot faster than other people do. McManus adds, It doesnt mean that theyre right. It doesnt mean that the other people are right. But theyre much more pessimistic about the future of fuel prices than the average person. McManus established this abstract profile based on 50,000 J.D. Powers consumer surveys. For Sam Williams, hybrid car drivers arent a statistic. As a moderator on the Yahoo Toyota Prius discussion group for over three years, Williams interacts with them on a regular basis. He says: Prius owners tend to be very interesting peopleinterested in a lot of different things. They get these cars not just as a means to get from one place to another. Some of them are making a statement. For some of them, me included, its very practical as a brilliant technology. People like me who got them in the beginning had to be a little more courageous than your average person. The Move to the Mainstream Brian Moody of Edmunds.com calls the Escape the automotive equivalent of the iPod. The New York Times October 27 article about the Lexus SUV said that the hybrid is about to enter the latte generation's comfort zone. As the next generation of larger and more mainstream hybrids emphasize luxury, high-tech wizardry, and/or powerrather than environmental benefitsthe demographic profile of a hybrid driver will shift . SOURCE: HybridCars.com | ||
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