50% Of People Said This Car Feature Matters To Them The Most - SlashGear Survey

Getting your first car is always an exciting time. Oftentimes, every single part of the vehicle is thrilling, and there's nothing quite like the feeling of an open road ahead and the freedom to speed up a little. However, as the initial hype wears off, seasoned drivers learn to appreciate some more down-to-earth features of a car. To find out which of those features is the most important of them all, we've asked our readers to tell us what car feature matters to them the most.

While many car owners pay a great deal of attention to the aesthetics of the vehicle, most people are making an investment that needs to last them a good few years. The features that the car comes with definitely play into that. Pushing for speed can be pleasant (and dangerous), but our poll results tell us that most drivers are rather practical. Instead of picking the nicest-looking sports car, many value budget-saving and reliability. Below, we'll examine the results of our poll and see how they stack up against each other.

Being frugal wins over speed

Of all the features a car can have, which one is the most important to those who use them? We've asked 606 SlashGear readers based in the United States to weigh in on the matter. Spoiler alert: We have a winner, and this feature beats most of the other options by a landslide.

According to a whopping 50% of all poll participants, the most important feature in a car is gas mileage. This should come as no surprise, really, given the unstable prices of fuel and the fact that the vast majority of people buy a car as a means to get from one place to another. If you drive a lot, gas mileage becomes crucial, and it's good to learn how to use less gas while driving. Picking out a car that doesn't excel in that regard can make quite a dent in your expenses in the long run.

Safety ratings are also very important in buying a car, and that's according to 29.70% of our readers. It's good to see this so far up and ahead of the more exciting features, some of which were also included in our poll. The third place belongs to speed, with 8.58% of votes going in that direction. In a way, it's a surprise not to see this up higher, but it's also reassuring to see that most people rate their vehicles by their safety and gas mileage rather than by pure speed. This is followed by blind spot monitoring (7.10%) and entertainment/sound system (4.62%).