What Drives Mobility Choice in 2026?

Insights from our Global Consumer Study

SBD Automotive conducted a global mobility survey at the end of 2025 to understand evolving attitudes towards travel and car ownership. The research explores key topics including vehicle purchase behaviours and motivators, mobility and transport usage and consumer viewpoints on future vehicle technologies.

The survey was fielded towards the end of 2025 and covered a global audience across 13 mature and emerging automotive markets, providing a robust view of how priorities differ by region and level of market maturity.

This second edition of the Global Mobility Survey has been refined to capture a broader and more actionable set of consumer data points. The full raw dataset will be made publicly available, enabling SBD Automotive clients to explore market-level detail and conduct deeper, bespoke analysis aligned to their strategic needs.

Freedom and convenience are universal drivers of transport choice

Across all markets, freedom and convenience consistently emerge as the dominant drivers of transport choice, ranking first or second in most regions. This highlights a universal desire for control, flexibility and ease in daily travel, regardless of geography or market maturity.

In mature markets such as Western Europe, the UK and Japan, convenience frequently outranks affordability. This reflects high consumer expectations around reliability, predictability and time efficiency, often supported by well-developed transport infrastructure.

By contrast, affordability plays a more prominent role in emerging and price-sensitive markets including India and South Africa. However, it is rarely the top priority, suggesting that cost considerations alone do not outweigh the fundamental need for freedom of movement and ease of use.

Safety and timeliness carry greater importance in Asian markets such as China, India and Thailand. This may reflect higher congestion levels and busier urban environments, where personal security and journey reliability become more salient concerns.

Emotional factors, including enjoyable and low-stress travel, play a stronger role in markets such as France and Mexico. In these regions, comfort and overall travel experience appear to influence decision-making more heavily alongside functional needs.

What this means for industry players: These findings reinforce that there is no universal mobility solution. Successful strategies must balance core consumer needs with local market expectations and clearly defined use cases, rather than relying on global assumptions.

Safety and comfort drive new vehicle choice

When considering a new vehicle, consumers prioritize practical, cost-saving attributes with safety, comfort and purchase price forming the core decision framework.

These primary drivers are closely followed by running-cost considerations such as fuel or energy efficiency, as well as maintenance and repair costs. Together, these factors underline the importance of affordability, peace of mind and day-to-day usability in vehicle purchase decisions.

Attributes such as build quality, performance, brand and design sit firmly as secondary considerations. While influential, they rarely override fundamental financial or functional requirements.

Meanwhile, warranty coverage, in-vehicle technology, space, security features and insurance costs typically act as reassurance factors. These attributes help validate a purchase decision rather than determine it outright.

More advanced or future-facing attributes including ADAS, environmental credentials, data privacy and customization rank lowest overall, suggesting they are either not yet well understood or remain relevant only to niche segments rather than the mainstream car-buying audience.

Throughout consumer market research carried out by SBD Automotive, safety and comfort are consistently observed as the priority drivers for new vehicle consideration. While it’s difficult for OEMs to build a differentiating marketing strategy around these core principles like Volvo have done, it is vital that OEMs heavily emphasize their safety and comfort focus to ensure they keep consumers actively engaged at the beginning of the decision-making process. This hook creates potential for brands to win customers over with secondary attributes/drivers including new, innovative technologies.

Markets cluster into five distinct security mindsets

Markets segment into five distinct security mindsets based on the relationship between perceived theft risk and the extent to which anti-theft features influence purchase decisions.

In security-driven markets such as South Africa, India and Brazil, high levels of concern translate directly into action. Anti-theft features act as core purchase differentiators, with consumers actively seeking visible and credible security solutions.

Mexico stands apart as an ‘anxious without action’ market, where elevated concern does not convert as strongly into purchase prioritization, suggesting barriers such as lack of knowledge, affordability or scepticism around the effectiveness of in-vehicle security.

China represents a more preventive mindset, with relatively high prioritisation of security despite lower levels of concern. This suggests proactive asset-protection behaviour rather than reactive decision-making.

Pragmatic realist markets, including the UK, USA, France, Italy and Thailand, view security as important but demonstrate lower overall concern. This may reflect stronger expectations that effective anti-theft solutions are integrated as standard, supported by broader security infrastructure that reduces perceived risk.

Finally, trusting markets such as Germany, Japan and South Korea show both low anxiety and low prioritisation of security. This reflects strong confidence in regulation, infrastructure and baseline vehicle security standards.

Anti-theft remains a critical differentiator

Vehicle security has long been a critical area of focus within the automotive industry, with theft methods evolving in parallel with advances in vehicle technology. Despite sustained OEM investment, recent years have seen several high-profile examples of security vulnerabilities being exploited.

In the UK, JLR has been significantly impacted by keyless entry relay attacks, driving insurance premiums to unsustainable levels for certain models. In the USA, cost-saving measures by Hyundai/Kia, specifically the absence of immobilizers contributed to widespread theft, with vehicles started by accessing the steering column without a key.

For security conscious markets such as South Africa, vehicle theft and hijackings are a highly common occurrence throughout the region with it estimated that 93 vehicles were stolen every day in the second quarter of 24/25 (SAPS).

Strategic implication: In markets where security concerns are acute, anti-theft solutions are likely to play a substantial role in shaping brand and model choice. OEMs must prioritise region-specific safety and security features, placing confidence-building technologies at the core of their value proposition.

Autonomy remains a challenging sell in Europe, the USA and Japan

Consumer receptiveness to vehicle autonomy varies sharply by market, revealing a clear divide between Asia and more mature Western automotive regions.

China, India, South Korea and Thailand demonstrate relatively low resistance to autonomy, with only small proportions of consumers unwilling to ride in a fully autonomous vehicle. This indicates greater openness to new technology and experimentation.

In Mexico, South Africa and Brazil, hesitation remains but is not prohibitive. Autonomy may gain traction in these markets if its value is clearly communicated and underpinned by strong safety and security messaging.

By contrast, Europe, the USA and Japan cluster at the highest levels of resistance, potentially reflecting stronger safety concerns and deeper attachment to personal control. As a result, ADAS and autonomy represent a significantly more challenging sell in these markets, requiring careful trust-building, transparency and staged adoption rather than rapid deployment.

SBD Automotive continues to closely track ADAS and autonomy developments globally, supporting OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers with strategic guidance grounded in real-world evidence.

Investment in higher levels of autonomy (L3 and L4) has been substantial, with limited commercial success to date. Mercedes-Benz was the first OEM to introduce an L3 system in Germany and the USA with Drive Pilot. After just three years on the market, the system has been removed from new S-Class models, suggesting it struggled to communicate sufficient consumer value to justify its €6,000–€9,000 price premium.

BMW has more recently launched its own L3 system (Personal Pilot) and it will be interesting to see whether it can succeed where Mercedes faced challenges. In parallel, Mercedes has refocused on L2 and L2+ systems, which are cheaper to implement and, under current regulations, often offer broader and more usable functionality than L3 systems.

These conclusions align with SBD Automotives consumer research conducted in 2024 and 2025, comparing Mercedes Drive Pilot (L3) with BMW Highway Assistant (L2+). While interest in both systems was strong, consumer experiences with BMW’s L2+ solution were consistently more positive, driven by lower cost and greater availability of use cases.

Thank you for taking the time to explore these insights from SBD Automotives Global Mobility Survey. The findings highlight the growing complexity of consumer expectations and the risks associated with applying uniform global strategies in an increasingly fragmented mobility landscape.

If you would like to view the questionnaire or discuss how these results apply to your specific markets, vehicle segments or technology roadmap, please email info@sbdautomotive.com to set up an expert briefing or request a summary of the key findings.

We can support deeper analysis of the raw survey data, provide market-specific insight and deliver strategic guidance tailored to your business needs.

Adam O'Shaughnessy  Senior Manager SBD Automotive

"Now in its second year, SBD Automotives global mobility survey provides a repeatable benchmark built on a large, multi-market sample (3,900 respondents across 13 countries). It goes beyond a single topic - spanning purchase drivers, multi-modal travel behaviour, security/theft concern, autonomy readiness, AI familiarity, and willingness to share data - so OEMs can compare markets on a like-for-like basis. The study answers key industry questions such as: which attributes matter most when purchasing a new vehicle, where autonomy is most likely to succeed next (and why), and how mobility needs and expectations are shifting year-on-year as technology outpaces consumer confidence."

David Ball  Senior Consultant SBD Automotive

"OEMs have an increasingly tough challenge designing and deploying unique strategies tailored to suit different market requirements. SBD’s global mobility survey enables a high-level understanding of where similarities and differences occur at a regional level when reviewing consumer attitudes towards automotive. This data set not only provides interesting regional nuances, but also demographic insights which are a key focus for many OEMs targeting new, emerging consumer groups such as Gen-Z audiences."