Clearly electrical vehicles are picking up steam in term of sales, even in Germany, which has been hesitant in previous years. But as most brands know – getting customers is one thing, keeping them is a different story. Are electrical drivers shifting back after first try? Or are they hooked for life? At Dataforce we are able to find in the data whether customers are loyal to their brands, but also if they are loyal to their fuel types.
German in 2019 number 1 in Europe regarding sales of plug-in battery vehicles
Germany sales of Full electrical and plug-in battery vehicles combined is now at 20% of the total European number for the year 2019 so far. In the last years Norway has been the biggest European market for Battery powered vehicles. So far more then 53 thousand full EV’s have been registered, as well as over 25,000 Plug in vehicles. The taxation benefits for fleet drivers have surely helped with this
Driving is believing
Can we expect all the green pioneers to stick with their choices or will they rush back to their comfortable humming diesels after the first experience?
Dataforce Private Loyalty tool allows to see what new buyers drove before. It means that we can also see which of the previous electrical vehicle owners, coming back to the market in 2019, have bought.
Of all returning EV-drivers, an impressive 72% opted again for an electrical vehicle. In comparison: only 45% of the Diesel drivers opted again for Diesel.
Command and conquer
As the car park of electrical vehicles is rather limited, new drivers will probably come from different fuel types. 44% drove a petrol car before and 41% a diesel. You might expect that hybrid cars would function as a stepping stone, but only 7% of the hybrid drivers moved to electrical. So, most consumers take a direct leap. This might also have to do with the lack of Hybrid models available before.
So, who is the victim?
For the number 1 sold vehicle in the private market, the Tesla 3 – we can see that most traded in vehicle was a VW Golf, followed by the BMW 3 series. For the Renault Zoe this is as the VW golf, followed by a somewhat surprising VW Touran.
For the BMW i3 most of the trade-ins were BMW drivers, proving also that brand loyalty is not dead!
