---
"title": "Necessary Cars"
"description": "Detroit may take some comfort from the fact that nine out of ten (91%) Americans see their cars as a necessity, essentially the same number who said so a decade earlier (93%)."
"date": "2008-12-09"
"authors":
  -
    "name": "Russell Heimlich"
    "job_title": "Former web developer"
    "link": "https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/staff/russell-heimlich/"
"url": "https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/short-reads/2008/12/09/necessary-cars/"
"categories":
  - "Transportation"
---

# Necessary Cars

Beleaguered auto executives might take some comfort from the finding of a Pew Social Trends survey that, while the number of consumer products that Americans can’t live without multiplied over the preceding decade, one item — a car — remained at the top of the list of practical necessities. Nine out of ten Americans (91%) said a car was a necessity and not a luxury they could live without. [Read More](https://alpha.pewresearch.org/pewresearch-org/pubs/323/luxury-or-necessity)