Great benefits in low-maintenance and sustainable materials

In Novem­ber 2021, the Japan­ese tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny Asahi Kasei, togeth­er with the Cologne-based mar­ket research insti­tute SKOPOS, con­duct­ed its third “Auto­mo­tive Inte­ri­or Sur­vey” in the four most impor­tant auto­mo­tive mar­kets: Ger­many, Chi­na, the USA and Japan. 1,000 car buy­ers with dif­fer­ent income lev­els in each mar­ket answered ques­tions about their buy­ing behav­ior, their under­stand­ing of auto­mo­tive sus­tain­abil­i­ty and their pref­er­ences for vehi­cle inte­ri­ors. The sur­vey results under­score the impor­tance of the Healthy Car port­fo­lio in help­ing OEMs meet the needs of end consumers. 

Vehicle users continue to prefer owning their own car 

Whether new or used: Sur­vey par­tic­i­pants pre­fer to con­tin­ue own­ing their own car. Car shar­ing or even doing with­out a car are cur­rent­ly not alter­na­tives. More than half of car users pre­fer to buy a new car rather than a used one. In Chi­na, 84% of respon­dents plan to buy, finance or lease a new car. They are pre­pared to spend an aver­age of 31% more on their next car. With an increase of 7% com­pared to the pur­chase price of their cur­rent car, the will­ing­ness of Ger­man car users to spend more mon­ey on their next car is low­er than in Chi­na, the USA (+19%) and Japan (+10%). 

Brand loyalty is a challenge for manufacturers 

The results of the sur­vey on brand loy­al­ty among vehi­cle users con­firm the find­ings of the 2019 and 2020 sur­veys: a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of cus­tomers are will­ing to switch brands. When buy­ing a new pas­sen­ger car, on aver­age only half of car users in Ger­many would choose the same brand as their cur­rent car. While a sim­i­lar trend to Ger­many can be observed in the USA and Japan, the results in Chi­na stand out clear­ly from the oth­er mar­kets. In the world’s largest auto­mo­tive mar­ket, 72% of vehi­cle own­ers are con­sid­er­ing a dif­fer­ent brand for their next pur­chase. These fig­ures show that a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of car buy­ers are not loy­al to a sin­gle brand and need to be con­vinced when mak­ing their next purchase. 

Vehicle cleanliness remains important 

While fuel/energy con­sump­tion, pow­er­train tech­nol­o­gy, oper­at­ing costs and mileage remain the dom­i­nant deci­sion fac­tors, the vehi­cle inte­ri­or has become more impor­tant in recent years. One in two car buy­ers in the top four mar­kets will con­sid­er inte­ri­or design when mak­ing their next car pur­chase. As vehi­cles become increas­ing­ly elec­tri­fied and autonomous, the inte­ri­or is expect­ed to become the most impor­tant dif­fer­en­tia­tor in the com­ing years, fur­ther increas­ing its impor­tance in the car buy­ing process. 

A key find­ing of the first sur­vey con­duct­ed in 2019 showed that car users world­wide attach great impor­tance to the clean­li­ness of their car’s inte­ri­or. In 2021, 64% of car users in Ger­many will con­tin­ue to attach great impor­tance to this aspect, ahead of intu­itive oper­a­tion (38%) and per­son­al­iza­tion (46%) (Fig. 2). A sim­i­lar trend can be observed in Chi­na (78 %), Japan (72 %) and the USA (62 %).

Car users see high benefit in repellent and easy-care surfaces 

Whether dirty floors, stains and scratch­es on inte­ri­or sur­faces, or the smell: the gen­er­al under­stand­ing of clean­li­ness varies from region to region. While car users in Chi­na are clear­ly annoyed by “unpleas­ant odors” (48%) and the so-called “new car smell” (23%), sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er respon­dents in the oth­er mar­kets take offense at this. “Scratch­es on vis­i­ble sur­faces” annoy one in four car users in Ger­many (25%). This pro­por­tion has increased fur­ther com­pared to 2020 (21%). A sim­i­lar pic­ture can be observed in the USA, where 29% of car users are annoyed by scratch­es (2020: 19%). “Stains on cov­ers” are also an annoy­ance for 30% of car users in Ger­many (2020: 26%) and 32% in the USA (2020: 26%). 

A large pro­por­tion in all regions see an advan­tage in “water- and dirt-repel­lent sur­faces,” with 74% in Chi­na, 70% in the U.S., 65% in Japan and 63% in Ger­many. “Easy-wash sur­face and seat mate­ri­als” are also high on the list, espe­cial­ly in the U.S. (81%) and Chi­na (80%). 

 “Clean­li­ness was already high on dri­vers’ minds before the pan­dem­ic. The last two years have rein­forced that desire, and the def­i­n­i­tion of ‘clean­li­ness’ has expanded.”

  — Heiko Rother, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Automotive

Mike Franchy, Direc­tor of North Amer­i­can Mobil­i­ty, adds, “As the cost of vehi­cles increas­es, con­sumers are using their auto­mo­biles longer and want sur­faces that are durable, easy to clean and look like new even after extend­ed peri­ods of time. With our Healthy Car port­fo­lio of antimi­cro­bial tex­tiles and plas­tics, as well as tech­nolo­gies to main­tain indoor air qual­i­ty, we have solu­tions for OEMs to meet these mar­ket needs.” 

Changing perceptions of sustainability 

The sur­vey results show that “sus­tain­abil­i­ty” in vehi­cles is no longer defined sole­ly in terms of pow­er­train tech­nol­o­gy, but also in terms of choice of mate­ri­als. For exam­ple, about half of car users in Ger­many, Chi­na and the U.S. char­ac­ter­ized a sus­tain­able vehi­cle by “mate­ri­als with a high recy­cled con­tent.” In con­trast, dri­vers in Japan pri­or­i­tized hybrid pow­er­trains over recy­cled mate­ri­als when char­ac­ter­iz­ing sus­tain­able cars. 

This grow­ing aware­ness of sus­tain­abil­i­ty is also reflect­ed in car users’ will­ing­ness to spend more mon­ey on a sus­tain­able vehi­cle. In Chi­na, two out of three vehi­cle own­ers would pay more, in the USA and Japan one in three and in Ger­many one in four. 

Heiko Rother con­cludes: “The def­i­n­i­tion and per­cep­tion of sus­tain­abil­i­ty in vehi­cles is chang­ing. Car users are pay­ing more atten­tion to the mate­ri­als used — an elec­tric dri­ve alone is no longer enough. More sus­tain­able inte­ri­or sur­face mate­ri­als that also look good, are durable, easy to main­tain and clean are receiv­ing more atten­tion from car users. Ulti­mate­ly, a ‘long-last­ing’ mate­r­i­al qual­i­ty is rec­og­nized as more sustainable.” 

Mike Franchy adds, “With our exten­sive prod­uct range of engi­neer­ing plas­tics, tex­tiles and our UVC tech­nol­o­gy for air purifi­ca­tion, we can work as a trust­ed part­ner with OEMs to joint­ly devel­op the inte­ri­or that cus­tomers demand.”