Survey: Fuel Efficiency Impacting Consumers' Auto Buying Decisions

In brief: Capital One Auto Finance surveyed auto buyers and prospective auto buyers and found that more than half of respondents (53%) say that their next car will be more fuel efficient than their current vehicle while 55% said they will be likely to give up a larger vehicle for one that's more fuel-efficient.

The word

The survey also found that 96% of those surveyed do not own an alternative-fuel motor vehicle and 76% have never driven one. 78% said they believe alt-fuel vehicles are here to say, however, and are not just a fad.

The President of Capital One Auto Finance, Sanjiv Yajnik, says that "While consumers are showing significant interest in gas-alternative models, our survey suggests that pricing is holding many buyers back from purchasing one."

Further into the survey, 54% of respondents said that they believe they will own an alt-fueled vehicle in their lifetime and 42% predict that up to 50% of cars on the road will be gas-alternative models in the next decade.

More telling, 41% of those surveyed did not know there were government rebate programs for purchasing alt-fuel vehicles and 71% have not calculated what the savings in fuel might be versus a traditional vehicle.

And so ...

The survey is enlightening, though it's a relatively small group of respondents. 802 surveys were given via telephone of 18+ year old Americans between March 22 and 25th, 2010.

Photo credits: Hacked Gadgets