Car ownership and young people: figures collapse in favour of new forms of mobility
Mobility — di Dario Zerbi
Young people and car ownership: figures collapse in favour of new forms of mobility. Only 12 per cent of under-25s own a car.
Car ownership and young people: figures collapse in favour of new forms of mobility
Young people and car ownership: figures collapse in favour of new forms of mobility. Only 12 per cent of under-25s own a car.
Car ownership is still a dream — but not for the very young. They are now increasingly drawn to new forms of mobility, from sharing services to microcars, through to bicycles and scooters. The picture that emerges from the "Autoritratto 2020" report — the statistical publication by Aci that captures the vehicle fleet of regions, provinces and municipalities as at 31 December 2020 — is one of an Italy sharply divided in two.
Average running costs stand at 260 euros a month
Whereas until a few decades ago most young people dreamed of owning a car the moment they turned 18, today only one in eight under-25s (12.2 per cent) owns a vehicle; in 2011 the figure was 20.8 per cent (one in five), a fall of 41.3 per cent over ten years. Among the causes of this growing disenchantment are certainly the average running costs, which last year stood at 260 euros a month; at the same time, however, the appetite for shared transport — whether cars, bicycles or scooters — is rising. The over-50 age groups, by contrast, are bucking the trend entirely. Between 2011 and 2020, in the 51–60 age bracket, car owners rose from 93.98 per cent to 101.13 per cent (+7.6 percentage points); in the 61–70 bracket, from 77.28 to 92.92 per cent (+20.2), while the over-70s grew by as much as 38.3 per cent, jumping from 46.03 per cent in 2011 to 63.67 per cent last year.
One in ten cars is nearly 30 years old
Another central aspect of the research concerns the car fleet on Italian roads, which remains far too old and polluting. As many as 3.8 million cars — nearly one in ten — were registered before 1993: in most cases these are Euro 0 vehicles that have now been on the roads for at least 28 years. Campania, Calabria and Sicily are the "oldest" regions in a ranking that places Trentino-Alto Adige, Valle d'Aosta and Veneto at the top.
Eco-friendly cars (electric, hybrid, LPG and methane) account for just 10.7 per cent of vehicles in circulation, a slight increase from 9.8 per cent in 2019. Marche, Emilia-Romagna and Umbria are the "greenest" regions, while Valle d'Aosta and Molise bring up the rear. Looking in greater detail, electric cars account for just 0.1 per cent of the fleet in circulation; but when hybrids are also included, a 67 per cent increase was recorded between 2019 and 2020, with extremely high peaks in Valle d'Aosta and Basilicata.