► Car use is strongly gendered both in car deficient households and in households with as many cars as drivers. ► Driving is positively affected by household work and employed work responsibilities. ► The hypothesis of intra-household economic power relations affecting car use is not supported. ► A strong ‘sex’ effect may point towards patriarchy and/or preference. This paper studies travel mode choice with a focus on car use in car deficient households from a gender perspective. Car deficient households are defined as households with more drivers than cars. We derive some key hypotheses from the literature and use the German Mobility Panel 1994–2008 to simultaneously test some of these hypotheses in a pooled data approach with cluster robust regression techniques. We find support for the social roles hypothesis which claims that mode choice may be impacted by the gendered roles a person takes in a household. Participation in paid work does not systematically affect car use more strongly than participation in unpaid work. Thus, there is no support for the economic power hypothesis which claims that car access is a function of intrahousehold economic power. The strong effect of ’sex’ leads us to conclude that there must be more behind gender differences in mode choice than just social roles. Gender differences in travel mode choice even in households with as many cars as drivers suggest that preferences may be at play. The paper concludes with an outlook on further research.