A panel of experts offered their thoughts on the shifting demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and how to enhance sales.
EV adoption is a complex subject, with many specific nuances and factors that influence consumer confidence. Therefore, the importance of checking and understanding the data around EVs is critical for any dealership.
The webinar, available to watch online now, featured:
- Andy Broadfield, managing director, electric and insurance at Motability Operations.
- Craig Ford, head of sales, marketing and digital solutions at mfldirect.
- Alex Wooltorton, head of operations and commercial optimisation at mfldirect.
Challenging EV myths
Wooltorton highlighted three areas where perceived wisdom about the EV market is being challenged:
“The first one being this idea that the usable range of an EV just doesn’t meet people’s needs.”
He noted that a large percentage (80%) of cars currently sold on the mfldirect website have reported ranges of above 200 miles.
“The second perceived wisdom in the market is that used EV values are really volatile.”
Instead, it was pointed out that the last two years of market data indicates that used EV values have enjoyed comparable stability to those of ICE vehicles.
“Thirdly, and a really important thing that I wanted to highlight, is concerns around EV and used EV battery health.”
Wooltorton highlighted that current data indicates that battery health isn’t an issue for used EVs in their first five years of use, but that dealerships can carry out checks to improve customer confidence.
“Dealers are feeding back to us that a lot of their customers aren’t concerned, that the guarantees and the warranties and the service wrappers that they already offer on their used cars are enough to give their customers confidence to buy a used TV and give them confidence around battery health.
“Other dealers are leaning into battery health certificates and they can test. They can use different supply partners in the market to do that, and they will be doing that to test the batteries of our EVs, and telling us whether, whether they fall below that 90% battery health.”
Improving consumer confidence
Conversation turned to how dealerships and their teams can ensure they get the relevant information about EVs in order to best sell to potential customers.
Ford said: “The best thing you can do is get your teams that are selling this product to spend some time in those vehicles. Understand charging on the go, understanding how that works, understand the connectivity of the vehicle.
“If you are not a digital native or you’re selling it to someone who’s an older generation, and you have to have an app on your phone to get the most out of your car, that can be quite daunting.
“It’s getting people comfortable with the basics. A lot of these interfaces are well designed, but ultimately, salespeople aren’t going to be able to sell these things with confidence unless they’ve experienced it themselves.”
Later in the conversation, Broadfield identified the commercial advantages of understanding domestic energy tariffs.
“Having your team understanding basic energy tariffs is absolutely a really valuable thing,” he said.
“It really opens up a conversation with customers that is really important in the EV journey. Even if it’s not what would be considered your stock knowledge and conversation piece at the moment, it will need to be for customers through the next few years.”
Thoughts on recent developments
With the UK government’s decision to introduce a pence per mile road tax for EVs, the panellists offered their thoughts on how this might influence EV sales and consumer confidence.
“It’s not particularly helpful to be having new taxes imposed,” noted Broadfield.
“It’s also a new style of tax. I think the combination of those two things into a new product that some people feel unsure about is unhelpful.
“Having said that, there’s still lots of support and the government is still clearly supportive of the ZEV mandate and that journey.”