What Cars Millennials Drive and Why
Millennials are expected to become America’s largest generation this year, with an estimated population base of 71 million. QuoteWizard looked under the hood of its car insurance quote data to see what cars millennials currently drive.
Millennials typically elect for cheaper-insert hipster millennial joke here-sedans over more popular SUVs and trucks. Below are the most popular cars and MSRPs driven by millennials:
- Honda Accord – $23,720
- Nissan Altima – $23,900
- Honda Civic – $19,450
- Toyota Camry – $23,945
- Hyundai Sonata – $22,500
- Chevrolet Impala – $28,020
- Ford F-150 – $28,155
- Toyota Corolla – $18,700
- Ford Focus – $17,950
- Jeep Grand Cherokee – $31,945
Car on a Budget
Millennials didn’t follow 2018 auto trends, dominated by SUVs and trucks. The average MSRP of the top 10 cars driven by millennials is only $23,829. Eight of the cars were small to mid-sized vehicles.
The five best-selling vehicles last year averaged $5,310 more than the millennial’s top five cars.
Millennials are making more money than ever for the 22 to 37 age group, banking $69,000 in median household income in 2017, according to Pew Research. That’s still less than their Gen-X and baby boomer counterparts, but that trend has remained consistent since the early 2000s.
Millennials also carry an average $36,000 in debt.
Lifestyle
Urbanization trends indicate that millennials largely are happier living in big cities. The trend seems to be increasing as the generation currently moves into cities at a higher rate than it did during the early 2000s. in the last nine years than they did in the 2000’s.
Living in urban cities gives millennials more public transit options, including ridesharing services, and the dangerous electric scooter. All these alternative options create less of a need for cars, let alone expensive ones, according to QuoteWizard.
Super Commuter
With increasing rent and housing costs in cities, many millennials are leaving for affordable alternatives. Millennials have helped give rise to the term super commuter as they balance high-paying city jobs, long commutes and a more-affordable suburban household. A super commuter is defined as someone who travels 90 minutes or more to work and is more likely to use public transit.
Living habits of millennials make them less reliant on personal cars for transportation. While they still drive and use cars at high rates, they certainly spend less on owning their own vehicles.
QuoteWizard used auto insurance quote data from users of its website. The company used data from the most recent year available on the books, 2018, and filtered for drivers in the millennial age range, from 22 to 37.
