The role of personal motives in determining car ownership and use: a literature review

Car dependency leads to a variety of societal problems and challenges, not least environmental ones. It is thus not only relevant but also critical to better understand the determinants of car ownership and use. Among those contributing factors, the role of subjective factors is often acknowledged to be important, yet not well understood. We conduct a systematic review of the literature regarding the effect of such motives on car ownership and usage. Based on the commonalities found in the reviewed articles, we identify and describe the five most relevant subjective factors in detail: (i) instrumental motives and autonomy, (ii) affective motives, (iii) symbolic motives, (iv) social norms, and (v) environmental motives. We synthesise these findings in a car ownership/use motives model, discuss implications for public policy and outline directions for future research.