Millennials Are Buying More Trucks Than Boomers, Gen X

Millennials were supposed to be different. Different politics, different relationships, different priorities. But then COVID happened and it seemed like the largest generation of the U.S. workforce just wanted what their parents had, like a house and kids and a (bigger) car. Well, new data has shown the truth of at least one of those about-faces.

According to J.D. Power, Millennials are on track to become the largest buyers of light-duty pickup trucks in 2021, the first time they will beat out both Gen X and Baby Boomers.

“Amid the burgeoning coronavirus pandemic last year, Millennials overtook sales of larger pickups from Baby Boomers – born between 1946 and 1964 – and are on pace this year to beat Gen X buyers – born between 1965 and 1976 – as the top buyers of mid-size and compact pickups,” CNBC reported.

That’s right, it turns out what we all thought of as the Prius generation has just as big of a taste for those oversized, overbuilt stuff-movers that they probably don’t even need. If you’re thinking to yourself that this was inevitable, a simple changing of the guard, Tyson Jominy, J.D. Power vice president of data & analytics, told CNBC that the rate at which Millennials overtook previous generations to become the largest generation of new car buyers in the U.S. has been “astonishing” — and precipitated by the pandemic.

This is where I’d be inclined to castiage my fellow Millennials for giving in to the unnecessary excess of American car culture, something I’ve done before, but CNBC noted that the generation born between 1977 and 1994 is also responsible for the largest portion of electric vehicle purchases. What we’re dealing with here is an across-the-board car-buying bonanza. Millennials have the money, they’re choosing to buy cars of all types and you can’t really blame them.

Well, unless I see someone rolling around in the city with their off-road-spec Jeep Gladiator that gets 16 mpg, then I’ll certainly blame them.