Meet the typical Tesla owner: A white man with a household income over $130,000
Tesla drivers are typically white men, a study that analyzed Model S, 3, and X owners found.
The typical Tesla owner has a household income over $130,000 per year, per the study.
Tesla owners are also more likely to own a home.
Tesla drivers look different than the average car owner, according to recent surveys.
The average Tesla owner is an upper middle class white male, according to a study from Hedges & Company, a digital marketing firm for automakers. The firm analyzed a vehicle owner database of over 175 million car owners and broke down the demographics for Tesla Model S, 3, and X owners in 2022.
77% and 71% of Model S and Model X owners identify as male, respectively, while 84% of Model 3 owners also identify as male, according to the firm. For comparison, about 49% of licensed US drivers are male, per the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).
Tesla owners are majority white. 87% of individuals who own the three Tesla models identify as Caucasian, 8% identify as Hispanic, and 5% represent all other ethnicities, according to Hedges and Company.
Tesla drivers appear to have higher incomes. The analysis found Tesla drivers largely come from the upper middle class (commonly referred to as individuals that have household incomes over $100,000 per year). The group found that Model S, 3, and X drivers have annual household incomes that average $151,096, $133,879, and $146,623, respectively. Meanwhile, the median household income in the US is $70,784, according to 2021 data from the US Census Bureau.
Tesla drivers are also likely to own a home. 88% of current Model S and X Tesla owners own their own home and 56% of Model 3 owners own a house, according to the study. The national rate of homeownership in the US is about 64% — though the number drops below 33% for Americans under the age of 34, per the US Census Bureau.
They're less likely to have kids in their home. About 66% of Tesla owners don't have children in their home, according to the analysis. Though, that doesn't mean Tesla owners are necessarily childless. The study found that Model S and X owners tend to skew older with median ages of 52 and 54, respectively. Meanwhile, Model 3 owners have a median age of 51 years old.
Hedges and Company's analysis mostly lines up with other studies of Tesla drivers when it comes to gender and income. Though, a study from Jerry, a Palo Alto-based car insurance savings app, found that 70% of the Tesla drivers in the data set were 34-years-old or younger — meaning the majority were Millennials or Generation-Z. The insurance group examined safety and demographics data from 10 million trips taken by 62,000 drivers in 52 different makes of vehicles as of January. Some 30,000 of those trips were taken by 228 Tesla drivers, allowing them to determine how the electric-car drivers compare to others on the road.
The January study also found that Tesla drivers are more educated on average. About one-third of Tesla drivers studied had a master's degree or doctoral degree as compared to only 13% of the US population, according to the Census. The most common occupations were also engineer, manager of operations, and software engineer, Jerry reported.
Insider previously reported that the typical EV buyer is a wealthy Millennial who has traded in a luxury gas-powered car for an electric one.
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