No one will argue with the statement that men and women are inherently different. Women want and need different things in life than men. Of course, there is some common ground when it comes to life essentials, but for many things, women have different thoughts than men about what’s ideal. This is even true when it comes to cars, an area of life that was for a long time dominated by men, but one that women are playing an ever increasing role in.
We recently discussed the car buying habits of men, so we thought it best to address women’s buying habits as well. Using the same two studies we cited to evaluate men’s buying preferences, we can ascertain what women want out of a car.
The first study we’ll look at came from TrueCar.com in 2012. It focused on what percentage of specific models were bought by men or women. The study revealed that the top five cars bought by women were the Volvo S40, Nissan Rogue, Volkswagen Eos, Volkswagen Beetle and Hyundai Tucson. Over 54 percent of buyers for those cars were female. We should note that this particular study does not reflect actual sales numbers. So, while 54.6 percent of VW Beetles sold that year were bought by women, a larger number of women may have purchased some other car. However, the percentage of women buyers to men buyers was not as high.
The second study was done by iSeeCars in 2015. This study focused on the cars that people want to buy not necessarily the cars they actually purchased. The website looked at the number of inquiries for cars and from that could tell what people are actually interested in, regardless of what was bought. The data showed that women typically buy affordable and usually practical cars and crossovers. The top five cars that women want, as revealed by the study, are the Hyundai Tucson, Nissan Versa, Volkswagen Beetle, Kia Forte and Ford Fiesta. Aside from the Beetle, all of these cars are very practical vehicles.
The iSeeCars study also looked at the prices of the cars highly sought after. While men shop for cars with an average price of about $49,000, women prefer cars around a much easier to manage $15,000 price tag. There’s a number of possible reasons for this. Part of the reason is that women typically aren’t all that interested in purchasing high-performance cars, which cost more money.
While the study by iSeeCars doesn’t make any assumptions as to why women prefer the kind of cars they do, we think a possible reason is that women would rather spend their money on other products than on a high-powered sports car.
Of course, the studies above don’t speak for all women. There’s plenty of female drivers out there that would love to get behind the wheel of a Nissan GT-R or a Chevrolet Corvette, but the overall trend is towards practical and affordable vehicles, which makes perfect sense for the everyday lives of most car shoppers.
With the information above in mind, check out these models we’ve recently driven.
Hyundai Tucson
Find Local Discounts on the Hyundai Tucson
Nissan Rogue
