EV search spikes

Are electric vehicles beginning to resonate with Australian new car buyers?

Amidst an Australian summer first besieged by bushfires and then flooding, and marked by intense debate about Australia’s greenhouse emissions and renewable energy strategy, carsales.com.au audience data reveals that searches for Electric Vehicles spiked – by a considerable 634% i(January 2020 versus 2019)

Standout models for search growth included the Jaguar I-Pace (+101.1%), Nissan Leaf (+106.5%), Tesla Model X (+30.2%) and Tesla Roadster (+84.3%).

New models, not available in January 2019 including the Tesla Model 3 and Mercedes-Benz EQC, also delivered incremental search growth.

With plenty of electric vehicle news, releases and reviews anticipated in 2020 -- from a range of brands including start-ups such as Rivian and Lucid, to hyped releases from giants such as Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz -- further search growth for electric vehicles seems all but certain.

While electric car adoption in Australia has lagged other markets, electric vehicle sales still topped 6700 units in 2019 – up from just over 1300 sold in 2018.

Much of the local growth can be attributed to Tesla. The Californian automaker –sold more vehicles in Australia last year than it did monthly during the previous seven, thanks to the Model 3.

Internal sales numbers obtained by carsales.com.au show Tesla sold 3793 vehicles in 2019, eclipsing the total sales of established car-makers including Jaguar (2274 sales), MINI (3204 sales) and Peugeot (2445 sales).

Following the UK Government’s surprise announcement to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035 – electric vehicle searches surged on UK automotive classifieds sites. Carsales’ January figures suggest it could have had an effect Down under too.

And it’s not just automakers and governments gearing up for change. Energy providers are investing in the infrastructure and technology required to enable the shift to electric vehicles.

“As emissions levels and environmental sustainability becomes a bigger priority for national, state and local governments, energy providers are investing in the infrastructure required to support increased EV adoption and usage for Australian car drivers and large scale fleets such as buses, government and delivery,” explained Mark Harland, Electric Vehicle Strategy and Partnership lead at AGL.

“In particular, managing electricity supply relative to demand will become critical to ensure that the adoption of EVs in Australia is seamless and convenient, and new innovative technology will play a pivotal role in achieving this. For example, AI technology that can predict when Australians are likely to charge their vehicles and their energy requirements, will be key to managing energy supply during peak periods,” Harland stated.

Canadian–born Harland, former Executive Director of Marketing at Holden and Regional Director of Marketing & Customer Experience for General Motors International, sees a bright future for electric and sustainable motoring, Down Under.

“In coming years, we can expect to see automakers innovate with how electric vehicles can actually help to increase power supply, such as feeding back into the grid using vehicle to grid (V2G) technology like the current Nissan Leaf,” Harland said.