Mobility is freedom — but the way we move is changing radically. A new generation is questioning car ownership, cities are becoming less car-dependent, and the shift to electric drivetrains is rewriting the rules of roadside assistance. What does that mean for the world’s largest automobile club?
- 22.2 million members (2024)
- €482 million spent on roadside assistance
- 42% / 77% car usage, under-30s vs. over-45s
Mobility in transition
Wherever we live, access to transportation is an essential part of our personal and professional freedom. But modern mobility is no longer one-dimensional. It has become layered, multi-modal, and complex — a toolkit of transport options rather than a single decision for a private car. And in that growing complexity, people need a competent partner at their side.
As new mobility solutions spread across very different living environments, a new, more deliberate mobility culture is emerging. This shift sits at the intersection of three forces: demographics, transport, and technology. Where they meet, new habits form — and new expectations of whoever enables that mobility.
The decisive driver of this shift is Generation Z. It has become synonymous with innovation, alternative concepts, and a new understanding of mobility. The reason lies in a changed set of values, in the obvious need for new concepts — and in their technical feasibility. Add to that a visible move away from status and ownership thinking around expensive status symbols. What appeals to this generation are mobility concepts that are accessible to everyone: anytime, anywhere, with minimal physical or financial friction.
There is a lot of talk about the future of mobility. The more interesting question is who will carry it — and who gets left behind.
Shaping habits, not re-educating adults
We are all creatures of habit. Getting a middle-aged person to fundamentally change their mobility behavior is hard work. The desire for a private vehicle has been deeply ingrained since the industrial revolution. That is precisely why shared mobility has been slow to take hold at scale — and precisely why it matters so much for managing traffic congestion and the consequences of population growth in urban areas.
The lever is not re-educating the already established, but shaping the up-and-coming. Attention has to go to Generation Z — young adults roughly between their mid-teens and late twenties. Given their stage of life, they are more malleable than any other generation. The most effective way to change mobility behavior is to shape it correctly, early. Generation Z typically does not yet own a car, depends on others, and has limited means — an ideal target audience. At the same time, they will be the most affected by the upheaval in the mobility industry. All the more reason the right patterns need to take hold now.
What’s interesting is that this cohort already expresses itself differently than earlier generations, even compared to the Millennials before them. Anyone who wants to understand the future should understand this group.
What drives Generation Z
How deep this shift runs is shown by a European study from McKinsey (Mobility Consumer Pulse, surveying over 4,000 people in Germany, France, and the UK). The most telling figure: only 42% of people under 30 regularly use a private car — compared with 77% of those over 45. For younger people, the car is no longer the default, but one option among several.
Only four in ten young adults regularly use their own car. The private automobile is losing its status as a given.
Preferences are shifting too. 64% of Generation Z prefer compact vehicles or even small-format micromobility like e-scooters — compared with around 50% across all other age groups. Roughly 55% would be willing to share their own vehicle with others, and interest in leasing packages bundled with sharing services (bikes, scooters, ride-hailing) is twice the average. And when they do buy a car, it’s increasingly electric: for every second young car buyer in Europe, the next vehicle is expected to be an EV.
These numbers don’t point to a single product, but to an underlying pattern: away from exclusive ownership, toward flexible use. For a good like the car — the most expensive item in most households, and for a long time the most important status symbol — that is a consequential shift. And it is no longer a distant forecast; it is already measurable in how people use their own cars.
Filling the gap
For shared-mobility providers, this is an opportunity: if only around four in ten young adults regularly use a private car, the private vehicle loses its taken-for-granted status. The car is no longer the precondition for freedom, but one option among many — and in the city, often not the most convenient one.
That creates a gap. Anyone moving multimodally — bike today, a shared car tomorrow, a train the day after — doesn’t need support for an engine breakdown, but for the friction points of everyday life: the broken rental bike, the shared car that won’t start, the ticket that failed, the missed connection. Whoever fills that gap wins tomorrow’s mobility customers. Which brings us to the real question of this piece.
A giant tied to the car
Few organizations embody the “competent partner at the consumer’s side” as much as ADAC. It counted 22,212,545 members at the end of 2024 — roughly a quarter of Germany’s population. No other club in Europe comes close to this scale, and it keeps growing: around one million new members in the last five years alone.
But a look at the books shows exactly what this giant stands on. Of roughly one billion euros in membership fees, by far the largest share goes toward roadside assistance: €482 million. The image of the yellow angel jump-starting a dead battery on the hard shoulder, or getting a stranded diesel running again, is not folklore — it is the financial core of the organization.
And that is exactly where the quiet vulnerability lies. ADAC is not simply an automobile club; it is a roadside assistance club. And roadside assistance requires three things: that people own a private car, drive it a lot — and that the car has technology that can be repaired at the roadside. All three assumptions are currently wobbling. Generation Z, by questioning car ownership itself, is striking directly at the foundation of the organization. Not out of hostility, but simply because they no longer need it to the same degree.
What’s genuinely fascinating: the loyalty
ADAC has always interested me as a company — or more precisely, as an association. Because behind its sheer size lies something almost unique in Germany: a loyal member base of more than 22 million people who stay, on average, for more than two decades. Hardly any other business model in the country has such a large, stable, and trusting customer base.
And that loyalty — not the tow truck — is the real asset. Whoever holds the trust of a quarter of the population can sell that group far more than roadside assistance. ADAC has long since gone down this path: insurance, credit cards, travel, legal advice. But the potential goes further. Such a loyal base is an ideal platform for entering additional segments — home, health, and other services that go well beyond the car. Perhaps the decisive question for the organization’s future isn’t “How does it save roadside assistance?” but rather: “What does it do with the trust of 22 million people once the car stops being the thing that holds them together?”
Electric mobility: fewer breakdowns, different breakdowns
The shift to electric drivetrains hits ADAC at its core competency — but differently than one might first assume. The obvious suspicion is that EVs constantly get stranded with a dead battery and need elaborate charging. The current ADAC breakdown statistics tell a surprisingly different story.
First, EVs are now more reliable than combustion-engine cars — across all age classes. Second, the most common cause of breakdown in EVs is, of all things, an old acquaintance: the 12-volt onboard battery, the same small battery that most often disables combustion-engine cars too. It can be revived roadside with a jump-start — no towing, no mobile charging required. A genuinely empty traction battery, the specter of range anxiety, is by comparison a relatively rare cause of breakdown.
For the yellow angel, that’s initially good news. Its roadside patrol drivers have long been trained on high-voltage technology, and the most common callout cause remains manageable. ADAC is also piloting mobile charging solutions for the rare case of a genuinely depleted traction battery — still in the pilot phase, but prepared.
The threat to ADAC isn’t EV technology — that’s manageable. The threat is that, overall, fewer cars are on the road, and they break down less often.
More reliable vehicles, combined with a generation increasingly avoiding car ownership altogether, converge on the same consequence: the classic breakdown callout — the financial core of the organization — is needed less often per capita. Not a technological shock, but a slow drying-up of the core business.
The city is reshaping mobility
The third pressure point comes from the cities themselves. Inner cities are becoming less car-friendly: low-emission zones, paid parking management, closed streets, more space for cycling and pedestrians. Where a private car once sat outside the door, a web of shared and public services is emerging instead — exactly the multimodal world Generation Z already moves through as a matter of course.
That doesn’t just devalue car ownership — it changes the kind of help people need. The classic ADAC has, so far, no offer for the everyday problems of multimodal mobility. But that is also its biggest opportunity. An organization with 22 million members, a nationwide service fleet, and decades of built-up trust could become the neutral go-to helper for any form of mobility — across providers and modes of transport. The yellow angel would simply have to stop being exclusively a car angel.
From car club to mobility club
ADAC is caught in a genuine bind. Its core business — roadside assistance for cars — funds the organization and emotionally binds today’s members. At the same time, that very core business is what the next generation increasingly does not want. Move too slowly, and the organization ages along with its members. Move away from the car too fast, and it risks the loyal members who carry it today.
The answer lies not in either/or, but in timing — and in identifying the right asset. ADAC needs to meet Generation Z where its habits are still forming — with offers for bikes, sharing, public transit, and travel that carry the same promise of security that roadside assistance once did. Because that is the real value of the yellow angel: not the wrench, but the feeling of not being alone in an emergency. That feeling can be detached from a single mode of transport and extended across an entire mobility world — and, as we’ve seen, even beyond mobility itself. ADAC’s real capital is not the car; it is the loyalty of 22 million people.
If it succeeds, the yellow angel stays relevant — just no longer only on the highway hard shoulder, but everywhere people are on the move. If it fails, the world’s largest automobile club slowly becomes the country’s largest nostalgia society.
Sources
ADAC figures, “Zahlen und Daten 2024”: 22,212,545 members, spending structure including €482m on roadside assistance, roughly €1bn in membership fees, as of 31 Dec 2024 (official primary source).
Breakdown causes & EV reliability: ADAC breakdown statistics 2026 (12-volt battery as the leading cause across all drivetrains; EVs more reliable than combustion-engine cars; roughly 50,000 EV callouts in 2025; mobile charging in pilot phase; high-voltage training for roadside patrol staff).
Generation Z behavioral data: McKinsey, “Europe’s Gen Z and the future of mobility” / Mobility Consumer Pulse (over 4,000 respondents in Germany, France, and the UK; 42% vs. 77% car usage; 64% preference for compact/micromobility; ~55% willingness to share; every second future buyer wants electric).
Figures on average member age (around 50) and gender split (around 40% women) come from market research (VuMA/Statista) and are not officially disclosed by ADAC. All figures should be checked against the current primary source before further use.