---
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://www.pewresearch.org/staff/russell-heimlich/"
url: "https://www.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://www.pewresearch.org/pubs/323/luxury-or-necessity)