Almost all dealers believe that there is a direct link between higher petrol prices and buyers’ interest in electric cars.
November’s new Startline Used Car Tracker shows that 52% say the correlation is “significant” while 47% believe there is “some” impact. Overall, 60% think consumers are attracted to electric cars by low refuelling costs, 37% say higher petrol prices make consumers think about switching to an electric car, and 33% believe consumers are aware that EVs are cheap to refuel.
However, 38% say a range of other factors are ultimately putting consumers off electric cars, 20% that consumers don’t know that electric cars are cheap to refuel, and 3% that they don’t notice petrol price increases.
Paul Burgess, CEO at Startline Motor Finance, said, “The research suggests overwhelmingly that dealers are seeing a link between electric cars and fuel pump pricing. It’s a really interesting finding that suggests new sales angles for electric cars, based heavily around the ability to run them much more cheaply than petrol or diesel vehicles, as long as you have access to a low-cost charger at home or work.
“Generally, electric car marketing appears to be heavily based around the advanced nature of the technology, strong range and a smooth motoring experience. It may prove to be more productive for the market to point out that when petrol prices rise, your electric car is likely to be a fraction of the cost to refuel.”
However, he added it remained significant that 38% of dealers said customers were ultimately deterred from buying an electric car for other reasons.
“There obviously remain a range of other barriers to electric car adoption for a large proportion of people at this point but this doesn’t change the finding here that a large potential market for electrification based around low-cost fuelling appears to exist.”
Asif Ghafoor, CEO of Be.EV, said, “It’s about time that the difference in VAT between public and off-street charging is addressed. 6.6 million houses in the UK don’t have access to driveways – why is it that they have to pay substantially more for EV charging than those with the luxury of space on their properties?
“If the Government can spend £5 billion on a fuel duty freeze, it can surely afford this VAT cut.”
