They’re probably good looking, too. . .

By Gary S. Vasilash

When it comes to customers, auto companies like them young and well-heeled.

Young because if they get the customers early and they do a good job in at least meeting and ideally exceeding expectations, this increases the possibility that they’ll stick with the brand or go up a level (i.e., from Chevy to Cadillac; from Toyota to Lexus; from VW to Audi).

And as for having plenty of disposable income—well, that’s obvious. After all, those Platinum and Unobtainium trims don’t come cheap.

This is borne out by a study conducted by research firm Numerator on electric vehicles.

As for comparative youth, it found that 42% of EV owners are Gen Z’ers or Millennials. That’s in the context of those two cohorts representing only 30% of all vehicles.

As for wealth, there are at least a couple of indicators: 44% are said to be from high-income households. Only 30% of the average vehicle owners are in that stratum.

And 77% of EV owners live in households with two or more vehicles. This is compared to 68% of all households with vehicles.

What seems somewhat odd, however, is that EV owners are twice as likely to walk or bike to get around and are four times as likely to take public transit than the non-EV owners.

While it might be thought that these Gen Z and Millennial EV owners are all about the environment, Numerator found that only 48% of them cited the environment as why they opted to go electric.

Seventy-four percent said it was for cost savings on fuel.

To put some numbers around that:

According to the EPA, the average cost of a gallon of regular was $3.48 in 2023. Also, the average miles per gallon achieved in new vehicles in 2023 was 26 mpg. In its “Fuel Economy Guide” it estimates the average driver racks up 15,000 miles per annum.

So, 15,000 divided by 26 is 577. And multiplying that by 3.48 gets us to an annual outlay of $2,008, or $38.61 per week.

Not a whole lot, but evidently even the wealthy watch their wallets.