High Gas Prices Spiking Interest in EVs: Are the Marketers Ready?

If you don39t have sticker shock from the price at the pumps it means you haven39t bought gas lately AAA says the current average price for a gallon of regular is 426 and it can be well over 5 for premium Americans love big cars and trucks Let39s say you own a Chevrolet Suburban with a 28gallon fuel tank and it39s running on empty That will be 11828 please The Suburban gets 22 miles per gallon combined and the Kia EV6 electric car I39m driving pictured above gets 105 expressed in miles per gallon equivalent or MPGeSo this is the EV39s moment My question is are the automakers ready for the onslaught of interest They certainly stepped up for the Super Bowl virtually all of the expensive ad time bought by automakers showcased EVs But the ads tended to be quirky funny and overall brand enhancers That39s fine but the present moment demands something more specific pitches about why EVs are a home run for consumers free from seesawing oil price fluctuations and better in every way than their current gas guzzlerNot to be crude but it can be done entirely with visuals war in Ukraine dissident Yemenis blowing up a Saudi oil refinery a brief look at a gas station sign or pump then cut to a happy EV owner plugging in The announcer needs to say just a few words quotEVs fuel up for four to five cents per mile on domestically produced electricityquotWhy don39t automakers run their ads Simple In this transitional period the majority of the cars they sell are the same fuel hogs the ad would be targeting Remember EVs and hybrids are five percent of the market The public pivot is very new The profit engine driving most auto companies is SUVs and trucks and the more horsepower the better Until now they39ve seen EVs simply as halo vehicles enhancing the brand image so they can sell more gas guzzlersWhat39s a quotcompliance carquot That39s an EV built to satisfy the letter of the law but only for sale in a few states without much if any marketing Did you ever see a Fiat 500e A Honda Fit electric I didn39t think soAutomakers are certainly investing hugely in new electric models battery plants and charging infrastructure They also need to beef up budgets for marketing their EVs at this critical turning point in historyThe situation has actually been worse on the showroom level where dealers put the EVs in the back row and salesmen struggle to answer the most basic questions about them My friend recently in a Mini showroom knew far more about the company39s EV than the quotexpertquot on the floorBack to the marketing campaigns Instead of the typical quotbuild excitementquot ads I think automakers need to go against conventional advertising wisdom and showcase knockyoursocksoff features such as more than 300 miles of range on a charge more than 500 miles in one case zero to 60 faster than most V8s easy home plugins drastically reduced maintenance costs EVs have few moving parts and reasonable prices enhanced in many cases by a 7500 federal income tax credit How about that Ford F150 Lightning truck which can power your house during a blackout or run your big power tools on a job siteI39m talking about nutsandbolts ads not spots that win awards for their creativity The folks just need to know the facts It39s time to head down to the dealerships and kick the tiresAre there complications Of course One factor in the fastmoving scenario is availability Because of the continuing supply chain problems EVs actually all new cars are scarce on the ground The stellar Hyundai Ioniq 5 first cousin to the aforementioned Kia has quotextremely limited availabilityquot the company saysThere are headwinds specific to EVs which have in general gotten steadily cheaper Planetizen quotes Gregory Miller an analyst at forecaster Benchmark Mineral Intelligence quotRising prices of nickel lithium and other materials threaten to slow and even temporarily reverse the longterm trend of falling costs of batteries the most expensive part of EVs hampering the broader adoption of the technologySo automakers actually need to straighten out the supply chain issues to ensure they can actually deliver the cars they market electric and gas too But the bottom line is that the price of gas is no joke The week of March 7 to 13 2022 it was up 76 percent compared to the same week in 2019 and this led to a whopping 10 percent drop in driving miles If people are shocked enough to actually avoid making trips then they39re likely to be thinking about driving a different kind of car The moment can39t be allowed to just slip awayPhoto courtesy of KiaClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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High Gas Prices Spiking Interest in EVs: Are the Marketers Ready?

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Jim Motavalli

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High Gas Prices Spiking Interest in EVs: Are the Marketers Ready?

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