SA chooses dream car, not green car
Thursday, 09 July 2009 07:45   

SA chooses dream car, not green carOver half of South Africans, if given a choice, would pick their fantasy car above a green environmentally friendly car, global market research firm Synovate says.

Synovate says a study showed that this is in comparison with 6 out of 10 people globally who would rather go green.

Synovate surveyed more than 13,500 people across 18 markets about ‘green’ versus ‘dream’ cars, vehicle ownership, intent to buy in the next year and attitudes towards cars, traffic, public transport and their need-for-speed.

South Africa-based Richard Rice, director of Global Motoresearch Sales & Marketing for Synovate, says that, in South Africa, the car is probably the closest product that comes to a visible expression of who a person is.

“Here a car is emotional. People love their cars… for the freedom, for the image they create, for what it says about their status. Consequently, that image is far more important than how environmentally friendly a car is.



“Compounding this is that many car buyers in South Africa are the first family members to even be able to buy a car so, in the excitement, green considerations will fall by the wayside. We’ll go with however much power we can afford.”

Synovate says it asked respondents to forget about money for a moment and tell them whether they would buy green, dream or in between and the top answer across all 18 markets, if money was no object, was to buy a green car, with 37% of respondents saying this would be their preferred purchase.

Thirty percent said they would buy their dream car and a further 22% claimed that ‘my dream car is a green car’… meaning that 59% - or very nearly six in ten - showed the desire to go green.

Some of the highest results for ‘green’ were Thailand at 77%, Korea at 76%, China at 75% and Brazil at 72%.

The nation most likely to simply elect ‘green car’ was Germany, with 58% choosing the environment over their dream cars.

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