Personal Mobility
The car remains a pillar of mobility – both in everyday life and on vacation. Respondents report to feel safer from COVID-19 infections in their car – be it in their everyday life or on vacation. Most households have at least one car.
Especially in France and the USA, households without a car are rare. Those cars are largely powered by combustion engines with little or no increase in electric or hybrid cars since 2020. Norway outshines the other countries with a 13 percent share of all-electric cars. Nonetheless, electric cars are still outnumbered by combustion engines.
Pandemic Reinforces Desire for Vacations on Four Wheels
Cars continue to gain in importance as a result of the pandemic and have become an integral part of many people’s travel and leisure-time habits. This is one of the key findings of the representative Continental Mobility Study 2022, which renowned market research company infas conducted worldwide on behalf of Continental. According to the study, a majority of people in Germany regard cars as an essential part of their mobility and their personal living space. 54 percent of study respondents see their car as a place of personal refuge. More than half (53 percent) use a car or camper van/motor home for vacation trips. Against the backdrop of long waiting and check-in times at airports, canceled or heavily overcrowded public transportation, for example in the wake of the €9 monthly travel pass introduced in Germany to cushion rising fuel prices, the safety and comfort of their own car have become more important for 61 percent of German respondents when it comes to their vacation. The vast majority of those who reported having traveled during the pandemic asserted in the survey that they intend to continue using either their car (84 percent) or their camper van/motor home (60 percent) just as much or even more once the pandemic is over...
Read here the press release.
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54 percent of those surveyed see their own car as a personal retreat 
In both urban and rural areas, cars remain the central pillar of mobility. Individual transport has become significantly more important in the pandemic. 
In Europe and the USA, one in two people drives a car every day. For daily mobility, the car is used more often than all other modes of transport combined. 
Owning your own car is today’s standard - but is it also the future of mobility? The vast majority of households in all countries own at least one car. 
The type of drive remains at a comparable level over the years. In Japan, there is an increase in hybrid vehicles. 
Personal mobility has become much more important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most people prefer to travel alone or with people they know. 
70% and more of the respondents say they have no contact with car-sharing models. Cabs and other ride-sharing and shuttle solutions do also not play any role for 61 to 80 percent. Only in China, these are regularly used. 
45 percent of the German population ride their bikes at least once a week. This is significantly more than in the other Western countries that are part of this study. Only in China, bicycles are used even more frequently. 
When it comes to public transport, the gap remains wide. In Europe, around one in four people travel by bus or train at least once a week; in Asia, this applies to even more people. At the same time, more than half of the people (except in China) use public transport less than once a month.
Download the results as a PDF here: Continental Mobility Study 2022 - pdf (18.27MB)
Back to overview Mobility Study 2022.