A Deep Dive into the China’s Gen Z: How They Use and What They Expect for Their Cars

Abstract

In the next half decade, there will be nearly 40 million potential Gen Z (or Gen Z for short) consumers in the Chinese market who will have a high propensity to buy cars. This study focuses specifically on Chinese Gen Z. It seeks to find out their car-buying preferences, lifestyles, how they understand and use their vehicles, and their daily driving needs, in the context of China. Our goal is to develop potential concepts and collect valuable insights from user research to guide our future product design. As a first step, we identified characteristics of Gen Z in China based on previous studies and industry research reports: Gen Z tends to focus on their feelings and needs, was born and lives on the Internet, and knows they have easy access to all the information they need, enjoys independence but also desires connectedness, uses the technology they are so good at, and loves Chinese culture. Next, we applied a qualitative method combining in-depth interviews and field observation. Twenty participants in China’s first- tier cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen; second-tier cities, such as Changsha, Hunan, and Chengdu, Sichuan; and third-tier cities, such as Hengyang, Hunan, and Mianyang, Sichuan, had participated. The current study revealed that (a) Gen Z is good at gathering the information they need from KOLs on the Internet to select a suitable car for themselves; (b) a car is assigned multiple roles by Gen Z, such as a friend, a private space, and an assistant; (c) although there is no significant difference between Gen Z and their Millennial counterparts when it comes to car use scenarios, for instance, going to work, shopping, or organizing a road trip, they are more likely to have a connection with friends during a trip, so the connection between their car and the passenger or another car became more important. In addition to the detailed user needs to be highlighted in the scenarios, we also discussed the design possibilities to shape the future smart car based on Gen Z’s needs for driver-automation shared control, digital cockpits, and their preferences for the car’s interior and exterior decoration.