Joint car ownership and car type preference model considering engagement in online activities and environmental concern

•We survey car ownership, car type preferences and their determinants.•Sample is taken from 1125 persons aged 18–25 in Tokyo, Kyoto and rural Japan.•We discuss the conflict “egoistic environmental concern” vs. “general environmental concern”.•Those spending more time alone with online activities have less desire to purchase cars.•This calls for careful consideration of promoting less car ownership in rural areas. We investigate young people’s attitudes to own a car. Our dependent variable is the desire to purchase any type of car as well as specific car types, such as small cars, sports cars or hybrid cars. We focus on Japanese aged 18 to 25 and obtain a valid sample of 1125 from Tokyo residents, Kyoto residents as well as people living in rural areas of Japan. As expected we find significant differences according to the city or rural living context. We control further for a number of attitudinal aspects that have been found significant in previous studies. We find that the perceived fun one gains from owning a car is an important factor and that more expensive and prestigious cars appear to be still desired. Our main focus and contribution is the inclusion of car’s “usefulness to avoid pollution” and “online lifestyle”. We find that those spending more time alone with online activities, have less desire to purchase cars. We discuss that there might be cyclic relationships which call for careful discussion on the implication of car ownership reduction in rural Explanatory variables areas. Furthermore, there is some weak evidence for an “environmental dilemma” where pollution in fact encourages more car usage in order to avoid this pollution.