It's hardly surprising that the auto-buying public is showing huge new interest in electric vehicles. According to QuoteWizard.com, online search interest in EVs climbed 300 percent just between February and March of this year. The number of people curious about the hybrid cars that have been on the market since 2004 also spiked in the period -- up 257 percent.
If you don't have sticker shock from the price at the pumps, it means you haven't bought gas lately. AAA says the current average price for a gallon of regular is $4.26, and it can be well over $5 for premium. Americans love big cars and trucks. Let's say you own a Chevrolet Suburban with a 28-gallon fuel tank and it's running on empty. That will be $118.28 please. The Suburban gets 22 miles per gallon combined, and the Kia EV6 electric car I'm driving (pictured above) gets 105 (expressed in miles per gallon equivalent, or MPGe).
So, this is the EV's 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. That's 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 guzzler.
Not 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: "EVs fuel up for four to five cents per mile on domestically produced electricity."
Why don't 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, they've seen EVs simply as halo vehicles enhancing the brand image -- so they can sell more gas guzzlers.
What's a "compliance car?" That's 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 didn't think so.
Automakers 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 history.
The 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 company's EV than the "expert" on the floor.
Back to the marketing campaigns. Instead of the typical "build excitement" ads, I think automakers need to go against conventional advertising wisdom and showcase knock-your-socks-off 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 V-8s, easy home plug-ins, drastically reduced maintenance costs (EVs have few moving parts), and reasonable prices enhanced in many cases by a $7,500 federal income tax credit. How about that Ford F-150 Lightning truck, which can power your house during a blackout or run your big power tools on a job site?
I'm talking about nuts-and-bolts ads, not spots that win awards for their creativity. The folks just need to know the facts. It's time to head down to the dealerships and kick the tires.
Are there complications? Of course. One factor in the fast-moving 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 "extremely limited availability," the company says.
There are headwinds specific to EVs, which have in general gotten steadily cheaper. Planetizen quotes Gregory Miller, an analyst at forecaster Benchmark Mineral Intelligence: "Rising prices of nickel, lithium and other materials threaten to slow and even temporarily reverse the long-term trend of falling costs of batteries, the most expensive part of EVs, hampering the broader adoption of the technology.
So, 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 they're likely to be thinking about driving a different kind of car. The moment can't be allowed to just slip away.
Photo courtesy of Kia.
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