Survey says: 2012 car sales
As the U.S. economy shows modest signs of rebounding, we were curious: How will car sales fare this year?
So in our national opinion poll, we put these three questions to Americans:
1. Do you plan on buying a car this year?
2. Among those planning to buy a car, will it be new or used?
3. Also among likely car buyers, will the car be American or foreign-made?
Here’s what our poll results showed: Roughly one-in-five American adults (19%) say they’ll buy a car this year.
Among those planning to a buy a car, 52% say the car will be new, and 46% say it will be used.
Lastly, Americans planning to buy a car say it’ll likely be U.S.-made (56%), while 35% say it’ll likely be foreign-made. Younger people (18-29 year olds) are the only age group more likely to buy a foreign-made car (61%-37%).
Want to get into the nitty-gritty details of our poll results? Check out the crosstabs below.
Poll Position’s scientific telephone survey of 1,155 registered voters nationwide was conducted January 5, 2012. Poll results are weighted to be a representative sampling of all American adults. The response to the question of whether you plan to buy a car this year has a margin of error of ±3%. Among the 1,155 questioned, 177 said they planned to buy a car this year. So the responses from likely car buyers to the questions about whether the car would new or used car purchase and whether the car would be American or foreign-made – those results have a margin of error of 7%.
What do you think? Vote in our online companion poll and comment below.
The online companion poll in which you can vote provides unscientific results, meaning it’s a tally of participating Poll Position users, not a nationally representative sampling.
Poll Position is committed to transparency and upholding the highest professional standards in its polling, explaining why we provide you with the crosstabs of our scientific polls. Crosstabs provide a breakdown of survey participants by age, race, gender, and political affiliation. Here are the crosstabs for these poll questions:
Poll Position crosstabs – buy car in 2012
Poll Position crosstabs – buy car in 2012
Poll Position crosstabs – buy American or foreign-made car
You can learn more about our polling methodology here.
