The cars served as a makeshift room for young or illicit lovers to spend a personal time together.
But since the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, cars have taken on even more roles, proving that they are not only used to sending other people from point A to point B.
Two separate surveys have shown that many other people are increasingly in their cars to get away from the other people they live with, replace the stage, take a nap, make a non-public or professional call, have time for me or just feel in general again.
“I had to drive in the suburbs recently. I have two teenagers and it’s the first time in a long time that I’m not home,” said Jenni Newman, editor-in-chief of Cars.com in Chicago. It was my first impression that life was back to normal. Make a song out loud and have a good time. I was surprised, it was a fabulous and relaxing bond for my soul.
These new uses of cars also replace what consumers need to buy in their next cars. For example, some consumers said they now need off-road features and more space in their next vehicle. in the car or have fun on car trips. In some metropolitan areas, there has been an increase in sedan searches.
“Travel is no longer a component of our life, so getting back to the car is a component of laughter and the pleasure of driving again,” Newman said. “It’s a bubble on wheels for many of us.”
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Kim Sperling and her husband Bruce, 46, reinvented their evening date.
Every Sunday afternoon, when they take care of us and their 8-year-old daughter, the Texan couple takes off on their 2018 Chevrolet Suburban SUV.
“We went for a walk and it would be our date day,” Kim said.”We went through a smoothie and finished taking a nap in our car.We communicate for a moment, turn on the air conditioner and fall.”asleep.”
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The couple, who live in the dallas suburbs, leave the car in April because “we knew we’d lose our minds if there wasn’t a way for my husband and I to connect,” Kim said.There was a chance to get away from the children and replace the stage.
In April through Cars.com, 53% of parents who responded to the survey said they “used their car to hide from their children,” Newman said.”Which is fun and also revealing.”
The test had 990 respondents, of whom 445 were parents. One in four also said he used his vehicle as a makeshift workplace because he was silent, Newman said.
In a two-component examination through TrueCar, he found that 73% of the 2,000 respondents said they used their car as their personal area to stay away from the other people they live with.TrueCar interviewed others 18 to 60 or older, an equivalent combination of men and women, said Wendy McMullin, Director of Studies at TrueCar.
His own colleagues inspired directing the studio, McMullin said.
“We’ve had Zoom meetings where they revel in their vehicle,” McMullin said.”They use it as a workplace when they want a quiet, secluded area or a place to escape.We also saw many other people who said they were taking it out just to drive, without going anywhere to have time for themselves.
Beyond providing a shelter for “me,” here’s the breakdown of other activities for which TrueCar respondents reported a car:
In addition, seven out of ten respondents said they saw their car as an extension of their home and family.Car owners reported that they have an emotional link to their car, and 35% of respondents named their vehicle.The highest stage names were: Betsy, Birtha, Bumblee, Cherry, Dr. Ben and Falcon.
“We asked about the moments of life in the car and many of them told us they had their first kiss in a car or shared vital news, like when they found out they were going with their parents,” McMullin said.
TrueCar also discovered that other people were beginning to identify the features they were looking for in their next car and those they were looking for before the pandemic, McMullin said.
“Comfort is the first to be selected,” she says. People say they should do more off-road or have more area or more connectivity and more technology.”
Nearly a third of those surveyed said they were looking for off-road features in their next car. A third of the cars sold lately are not for off-road driving, McMullin said, adding: “This represents more people saying that we need this capability than we see in auto sales lately.”
The additional generation is that other people paint in their cars to spend time in peace or, in the case of the Sperlings, plan more circle trips of relatives in the future, so they would pay to turn on Bluetooth and have some others turned on.-board generation.
“Our next car we’ll have, we’ll buy a Car with Bluetooth and in-car TVs,” Kim Sperling said.”We thought we were probably going on a road now and we’d like to have it.”
At Feldman Automotive, which has 8 new vehicle dealerships in Michigan and 3 in Columbus, Ohio, customers’ personal tastes are being transformed as others use their cars as an “escape” now from the pre-stay period, said Dave Katarski, Feldman’s chief operating officer.
“We’ve noticed this in the VR industry too,” Katarski said, referring to Mark Wahlberg’s Airstream-RV in Columbus, Ohio, whose organization is co-owned. “People buy recreational vehicles like loopy and they want a truck or SUV to tow trailers.”
Beyond that, Cars.com said customer searches for sunroof and sunroof cars increased by 1.5% over the past year, said Allison Phelps, Cars.com spokesman.In addition, he revealed that 29% of buyers who are on the market to buy a vehicle during Labor Day weekend said they were looking for a convertible.It was the third popular top choice.
“We’ve also noticed an increase in sedan search activities,” Phelps said.”People for sedans increased by 14 percent more than the expansion in the overall study activity from April to June.”
Phelps said major subway centers have noticed a more significant expansion in sedan activity than the rest of the country. In New York, sedan searches were four percentage points higher, Chicago 2 percentage problems and Los Angeles four percentage points higher than the overall accumulation of searches on the site, Phelps said.
“People are incredibly careful with public transportation and carpooling, so they turn to owning a vehicle to get where they want to go,” Newman said.
Contact Jamie L.LaReau at 313-222-2149 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Learn more about General Motors and subscribe to our newsletter.