America's Off-Road Obsession Is Back — And It Wants Nothing to Do With Electric Power
Something is shifting in the American psyche behind the wheel. After years of relentless messaging about the electric future, a new wave of data suggests that when drivers dream about dirt roads, mountain passes, and the deep green canopy of wooded trails, they're not picturing a silent EV doing the hauling. They want a gas engine. They want torque they can hear. And they want it right now.
The latest edition of the Hankook Tire Gauge Index, released in late July 2026, makes the case in plain numbers. Hankook's Gauge Index — the longest-running survey of driver behavior in the tire industry — finds that nearly two-thirds of U.S. drivers, 64 percent, are interested in taking an all-terrain or off-road driving adventure, almost double the number who expressed interest just one year ago, which stood at 34 percent. That's not a modest uptick. That's a generational surge in appetite for the kind of driving that gets mud in your wheel wells and gravel pinging off your undercarriage.
And when it comes to what vehicle they'd want underneath them for that adventure? Of those surveyed, the overwhelming majority would take a combustion-powered vehicle over an EV. The data is consistent across every vehicle segment — trucks, SUVs, and even sedans — and the margins aren't close.
The Numbers Don't Lie: Gas Still Rules the Trail
The powertrain preference data is the headline buried inside this survey, and it deserves to be read carefully. When asked what their ideal vehicle would be for an off-road trip, more than half — 52 percent — of drivers say they would take an SUV, versus 36 percent who would opt for a pickup truck. That SUV preference might surprise the truck-loyal crowd, but it reflects the practical reality of the modern American garage, where crossovers and body-on-frame SUVs have largely replaced wagons and traditional sedans for family duty.
But the more telling finding is what powers those preferred rigs. Gas-powered vehicles were preferred across every vehicle category. Seventy-nine percent of respondents who selected an SUV preferred a gas-powered model, while 87 percent of those who chose a pickup truck preferred gasoline power. Among respondents who selected a sedan, 69 percent preferred a gas-powered vehicle instead of an electric model.
Read that pickup figure again: 87 percent. That jumps to nearly 9 in 10 for pickup devotees. Truck culture and EV technology have been awkward bedfellows since the first electric F-150 rolled off the line, and this survey confirms that the friction is real and deeply felt. The men who buy full-size pickups — and largely drive them into the kind of terrain that demands serious capability — remain stubbornly unconvinced that a battery pack under the floor is the right answer for a day on the rocks or a weekend pulling a loaded trailer up a mountain grade.
Why the Resistance? Range Anxiety Meets Real-World Trail Use
The skepticism is not irrational. Off-road driving is categorically harder on a vehicle's energy reserves than highway cruising. Traction control engages constantly, low-range gearing multiplies the load on the drivetrain, and the terrain itself — elevation changes, river crossings, sand or mud sapping momentum — accelerates the drain on any power source. With a gas engine, a jerrycan of fuel solves an emergency. With an EV, the nearest Level 3 charger might be two mountain ranges away.
While automakers like Toyota are busy figuring out off-road EV solutions, range anxiety still keeps most enthusiasts tied to gas. That sentiment captures the market precisely. The engineering problem isn't theoretical — it's logistical. A Rivian R1T with its dual motor setup is genuinely capable on rock, but when you're 40 miles deep into a national forest with no cell service, "capable" takes a back seat to "reliable."
The survey's methodology also deserves mention before the numbers are taken as absolute gospel. The Hankook Gauge Index is a survey of Americans' attitudes and opinions about driving, fielded since 2014. The latest survey was conducted June 5 through June 8, 2026, polling 1,000 randomly selected American drivers aged 18 and older. A sample of 1,000 is a standard polling size, and the Gauge Index's longevity gives it methodological credibility, but as with any survey, the numbers represent intent and preference rather than observed behavior. Still, when nearly nine out of ten pickup owners say the same thing, the signal is hard to dismiss as statistical noise.
Where America Wants to Go Off-Road
The Wooded Trail Dominates
The survey didn't just ask what vehicle and what powertrain — it asked where. The results sketch a portrait of a population that's hungry for nature but not necessarily chasing extreme terrain. It appears most of those interested in an off-road experience want something tame rather than climbing over rocks at Moab. As such, 45 percent said they plan to take a trip along wooded trails, while just 17 percent would prefer exploring a desert.
That preference for wooded trails over desert dunes or rocky landscapes makes pragmatic sense. The American West offers spectacular off-road terrain, but the vast majority of the population lives within driving distance of forested land — the Appalachians, the Ozarks, the Cascades, the northern Rockies, the Pisgah and Cherokee National Forests. A weekend trip to a wooded trail network is achievable. A pilgrimage to Moab requires real planning. The survey reflects the realistic ambitions of a driver population that wants more than pavement but hasn't necessarily committed to rock crawling as a lifestyle.
Desert, Rock, and Mud: A Smaller but Passionate Minority
Desert terrain came in a distant second at 17 percent, with younger drivers showing a greater appetite for sandy landscapes than older generations. The appeal of desert driving — particularly in places like the Southwest — has only grown as social media has amplified the visual spectacle of dune running and canyon navigation. That younger demographic skew matters because it signals where off-road culture might migrate in the next decade.
An all-terrain excursion could mean driving through wooded trails, tackling sand or desert terrain, climbing rocky landscapes, or powering through wet and muddy conditions. Each of those environments places different demands on tires, suspension tuning, and drivetrain configuration — and each one exposes the current limitations of EV off-roading in different ways. Mud clogs and weights down vehicles, requiring consistent power delivery that doesn't stutter under thermal load. Rocky terrain demands precise throttle modulation that, while EVs can deliver it electronically, still raises questions about recovery scenarios far from civilization.
Generation by Generation: Who Is Driving This Surge
One of the most striking findings in the Hankook data isn't the gas-versus-electric split — it's how broadly the off-road enthusiasm cuts across age groups. Younger drivers show the highest enthusiasm for off-roading, with nearly three-quarters of Gen Z at 74 percent and Millennials at 72 percent saying they are interested in taking an off-road trip. Interest is less robust among older generations; however, more than half of Gen X drivers at 57 percent say they would like to take an off-road adventure, and 4 in 10 Boomers at 42 percent are looking for the thrill of off-roading.
The Gen Z and Millennial numbers carry particular weight because they push back against a common assumption: that younger, digitally native Americans raised on sustainability messaging would be the most likely to embrace EVs across the board. Instead, these same generations are the most enthusiastic about off-road adventures — and when the powertrain preference data is applied, that enthusiasm isn't doing the EV market any favors. A 24-year-old who wants to spend his weekends on fire roads in the Sierra Nevada isn't shopping for a Chevy Equinox EV.
There's a cultural component at work here beyond just practicality. Off-roading has absorbed enormous social media energy over the past five years. Overlanding — once a niche pursuit of serious expedition-minded adventurers — has exploded into a mainstream recreational identity, complete with its own gear culture, YouTube channels, Instagram feeds, and aftermarket industry. The visual grammar of overlanding — rooftop tents, high-lift jacks, auxiliary lighting bars, snorkels — is deeply associated with diesel-era Land Cruisers and gas-powered Wranglers. EV aesthetic hasn't penetrated that identity.
The Tire Factor: What Drivers Actually Prioritize When Going Off-Road
Hankook, naturally, has skin in this game. The company is in the tire business, and the Gauge Index exists in part to inform product development. Hankook says the findings of its recent Gauge Index are helping inform the continued development of its Dynapro line of SUV and light truck tires. The survey's off-road focus aligns neatly with positioning Dynapro as the go-to option for the adventure-seeking driver, but that commercial motive doesn't undermine the validity of the consumer data.
The tire preference data is instructive. When drivers were asked what is most important in a tire designed for off-road driving, 42 percent of respondents say traction control across varying surfaces is their top priority. Durability and performance on rough terrain also influenced how drivers evaluated off-road tires. These are the metrics that have defined the all-terrain tire category for decades — the same performance attributes that led to the rise of tires like the BFGoodrich KO series, the Toyo Open Country, and, increasingly, Hankook's own Dynapro AT.
These preferences highlight the need for tires that perform strongly across different types of terrain, from wooded trails to desert environments, underscoring that tire choices have become a key part of how serious off-roaders prep their vehicles. A capable vehicle on stock tires is a compromised vehicle. The aftermarket tire upgrade is often the first and most impactful modification a new off-roader makes — and the data suggests that driver awareness of that reality is climbing in step with overall off-road interest.
The Broader Context: EVs and the Trust Deficit in the Dirt
The Hankook survey doesn't exist in isolation. It lands inside a broader cultural and market conversation about where EV adoption is actually headed versus where it was projected to go. Research from EY notes that the preference among new and used car buyers to purchase a battery-electric vehicle has dropped by 10 percent, landing at just 14 percent overall. That's a significant pullback from the optimistic adoption curves that automakers and analysts were drawing just a few years ago.
The off-road segment has always been one of the harder sells for electrification. Range anxiety, which softens considerably on the highway as fast charger infrastructure improves, sharpens dramatically once you leave paved roads. The charging network that has been steadily improving along interstate corridors has no analog deep in a national forest or on a remote BLM trail. The use case that the Hankook survey is measuring — Americans who want to get away from civilization — is precisely the use case where EV infrastructure is least equipped to support them.
There's also a weight problem that the off-road community talks about frankly. Electric trucks and SUVs are substantially heavier than their combustion counterparts, owing to the mass of battery packs. That additional weight affects articulation on uneven terrain, increases the likelihood of getting stuck in soft conditions like mud or sand, and raises the stakes of a recovery operation. When you're trying to winch a 7,000-pound truck out of a ravine, the extra mass of a 9,000-pound electric version changes the math considerably.
What the Auto Industry Hears in These Numbers
Automakers have been reading the room on off-road EVs with mixed conviction. Ford pushed the F-150 Lightning hard, only to face disappointing sales that prompted production cuts. Rivian found a niche but has struggled to scale. GMC's Hummer EV is a genuine off-road performer in the extreme sense, but at a price point that puts it out of reach for the average driver who just wants to run a forest service road on the weekend.
Even mainstream brands are noticing this shift, with companies like Hyundai joining in to capture the adventurous family market. The push by mainstream brands into the rugged-aesthetic SUV space — think the Santa Cruz, the Tucson with its trail-marketed trim levels — suggests that the industry reads the off-road enthusiasm as real and growing, even if the powertrain preference data challenges the assumption that this enthusiasm will naturally funnel into EV sales.
The data from the Hankook survey should function as a reality check for any automaker betting heavily that off-road EV products will drive near-term volume. Across vehicle types, including SUVs, pickup trucks, and sedans, drivers show a clear preference for gas-powered vehicles for off-road use. That's not a segment-specific quirk — it's a consistent signal across the entire market. When even sedan owners, a demographic not typically associated with trail running, prefer a gas car over an electric one for off-road scenarios by a 69-to-31 margin, the message is unambiguous.
The Doubling of Interest: What's Driving It?
A new Hankook survey reveals a massive and unexpected spike in American drivers ditching paved highways for thrilling off-road dirt trail adventures. According to the longest-running driver behavior study in the tire industry, Americans are shifting gears and seeking out dirt, mud, and gravel in unprecedented numbers. But what's behind that near-doubling of stated interest from 34 percent to 64 percent in a single year?
Part of the answer is almost certainly post-pandemic momentum that, years later, is still pushing Americans toward outdoor recreation and away from screen-mediated entertainment. The desire to be somewhere physical, uncomfortable, and analog — somewhere a Wi-Fi signal can't reach — has only grown as remote work normalized flexible schedules and gave people the freedom to disappear for a long weekend without burning vacation days.
The overlanding and off-road content ecosystem has also played a role. What was once gatekept behind specialized forums and regional clubs is now accessible to anyone with a YouTube account. A 22-year-old watching his favorite overland creator run the Trans-America Trail in a lifted 4Runner doesn't see that trip as impossibly exotic — he sees a checklist. He starts saving. He starts researching tires. He takes the Hankook survey and says yes, he'd like to go off-road this summer. And no, he doesn't want to do it in an EV.
The distinction between the question asked this year and last year is worth acknowledging, as some analysts have noted. As is often the case with studies like these, there's more than meets the eye. Last year's survey asked a different question. The year-over-year comparison may not be a perfectly apples-to-apples measurement of sentiment change. But even with that caveat, the raw number — 64 percent of American drivers expressing interest in off-road or all-terrain driving — is substantial on its own terms.
The Road Ahead for Off-Road Culture and EV Adoption
The tension between off-road culture and EV adoption isn't permanent, and it would be a mistake to read this survey as a verdict on the long-term future of electric off-roaders. Engineering continues to advance. Solid-state batteries with higher energy density and lower weight could change the weight calculus meaningfully. Expanded charging infrastructure — including solar-based off-grid charging solutions — could eventually reach remote areas. And the torque characteristics of electric motors, which deliver maximum twist from a dead stop, are genuinely well-suited to the low-speed, high-load demands of rock crawling.
But the market lives in the present, not in projected futures. And in the present, the data is clear: most people still favor combustion engines over EVs, with 79 percent preferring a gas-powered SUV over an electric one, while 87 percent of pickup drivers would take an ICE model over an EV. That's where consumer trust currently sits, and trust is earned over time through accumulated real-world experience, not through spec sheets or press releases.
For the American driver who has spent years reading trail reports, watching recovery videos, and meticulously planning a route through terrain where the closest town is 60 miles of washboard away, the choice of a gas-powered rig isn't nostalgia or stubbornness. It's risk management. It's the knowledge that a two-gallon gas can has saved more trails days than any battery management system. Until the EV industry can credibly answer what happens when the battery hits zero in a canyon with no road, the combustion engine will remain the overwhelmingly preferred tool for the job — and no amount of survey massaging will change that arithmetic.
