This report is a continuation of a large study that began in 2020 to better understand the growing preference of the Canadian population for fuel-efficient vehicles and the factors (political, economic, social, etc.) that contribute to the increase in sales of this type of vehicle. CIRANO has already participated in this study by publishing two project reports in 2021 and this new report deals in more detail with the situation in Quebec, with a particular focus on vehicle use patterns. To do so, an empirical study was conducted with a representative sample of 1,020 Quebec vehicle owners using an online questionnaire administered in July 2022. 

The questionnaire survey revealed four major aspects that influence the intention to purchase a SUV: vehicle characteristics (such as the importance of a high driving position and four-wheel drive), demographics (such as living in a rural area and having a higher household income) and psychological factors (such as the importance of hedonic and selfish values). Most importantly, however, the nature of the primary vehicle is the variable that stands out with the largest effect (β = 0.451) on SUV purchase intention. Thus, consistent with the 2020 results, the most important factor in explaining future SUV purchase intention is prior SUV ownership. 67% of SUV owners said they were extremely likely or very likely to purchase an SUV as their next vehicle compared to only 24% of sedan owners. These results reinforce the conclusion that owning an SUV is the best predictor of high SUV purchase intent for the next vehicle and underscore the importance of interventions targeting first-time buyers. 

The survey results also suggest that reducing car ownership among owners will be very difficult, since owners consider their vehicle to be indispensable regardless of the type of vehicle they own, although sedan owners are significantly less likely to consider their vehicle indispensable. Although respondents generally consider their vehicle to be indispensable, they don't use it to its full capacity, either in terms of vehicle seating or storage space. On average, 35% of respondents indicate that at least 3 out of 5 seats in their vehicle are occupied at least once a week. However, the largest proportion of respondents said that this only happened a few times a year (40.1%), and 13.6% said it never happened. The same orders of magnitude are observed with respect to the use of cargo space. In contrast, significantly more SUV drivers than sedan drivers frequently use the majority of the seats in the cabin and the full capacity of the trunk. However, when controlling for other socio-demographic variables, the type of vehicle driven is generally not an explanatory factor for the frequency of use of the full capacity of our vehicle, whether we are talking about seats or the trunk, but rather it is having children that is the variable with the greatest explanatory power.