Always On: With Auto Tariffs a Reality, a Look at Interest in Truck Ownership

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We’re starting today with an interesting trend: The share of consumers who say they will never be a truck owner reached a series high in March at 39% after climbing for several months. Meanwhile, the share who identify as future truck owners has declined — falling to a near-series low at 23%.

With the diverse array of topics Morning Consult collects data on, we’re also able to see that people who aren’t interested in buying trucks are also increasingly likely to say their personal finances will be worse off in 12 months. That share has climbed 6 points since the start of the year. And nearly 1 in every 3 of these consumers say current buying conditions are bad right now, another six point jump from the start of the year.

While the share of future truck owners has declined this year, the share of current truck owners has held steady. We’re going to be comparing these audiences today. As President Trump announces 25% tariffs on imported cars and parts, these audiences are ones that car brands should be paying close attention to. We’ll be discussing tariffs and their impact on brands and the economy in an exclusive webinar this week on Wednesday at 12 PM ET. Join us then.

Future Truck Owners vs. Current Truck Owners

While the makeup of current truck drivers is fairly monolithic — they’re older, a vast majority are white, and more than half of them are married — future truck owners are more multifaceted. If those who express interest in buying trucks actually follow through, the average truck driver will have a much different profile. Let’s explore.

Future truckers tend to be more trendy
38% of this audience says they’re generally the first to try new technology — which is 4 points higher than current truck owners. The former is more likely to be on Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, while the latter is more likely to be on Pinterest, Pandora and Yelp.

Interest in buying a truck in the future is evenly split amongst men and women
But 54% of current truck owners are men.

Future truck owners are less politically engaged
The share of future truck owners who aren’t interested in politics is 9 points higher than current ones. The former group is also more likely to identify as independents (by 7 points) and as Democrats (10 points).

Black respondents make up a higher share of future truck owners
20% of consumers who express interest in owning a truck in the future are Black, which is 7 points higher than all respondents and 12% higher than current truck owners.

Future truck owners are more likely to be optimistic about their finances
This group is more likely to say their personal finances will be better off in 12 months, and 7 points less likely than current owners to say current buying conditions are bad.

Morning Consult Intelligence makes it easy to build and compare custom audiences like we’re doing here. Not a client but want to give it a spin? Reach out to us here and we’ll be in touch.

Extra Credit

As a full-blown trade war threatens to impact the cost of, well, everything, trying to understand where consumers may cut back is one of the most essential questions clients are asking us right now. Our economists have this answered in a memo we recently published.

When it comes to essential categories, everything is on the cutting block. But consumers of all income levels are most likely to report planned cuts across groceries, gas, and personal care products. A few other tariff reads you should dive into:

• The Trump administration’s rapidly expanding trade war has coincided with a staggering upswing in anti-American sentiment: Global average net favorability of the United States has fallen by roughly 20 points since January. Our data shows that some U.S. brands have already seen steep drops in purchasing consideration among overseas consumers coinciding with recent U.S. tariff announcements — suggesting that worsening views of America are rapidly taking a toll on some brands’ health. Read more.
• The automobile tariffs Trump introduced last week are just as unpopular as his Canadian and Mexican tariffs — 49% of voters oppose them. Discontent among lower-income voters, who are increasingly influential in the Republican voter base, continues to be a valid political pressure point for corporations hoping to move vulnerable lawmakers away from Trump’s tariffs. Read more.

We’ll be discussing anti-Americanism in the age of tariffs in our webinar on Wednesday, April 8. Join us here.