How will EV law changes affect your showroom traffic?

In some ways it a good thing.  Pushing back the time line for the mandatory ‘turning off’ of ICE engine cars until 2035.

I always thought 2030 was a bit optimistic, but to be fair car manufacturers grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, invested huge amounts of money and looked like they were on target to achieve it.

But the Government have now moved the goal posts.

Is buying a car a toss of the coin at the moment. Do you buy petrol, EV or a hybrid. Think of the poor soul that is trying to sell them.

Which will definitely affect customer confidence.  Is this likely to affect the number of people enquiring about your cars?

Over the last couple of months we have had BMW make a couple of sweeping statements regarding the Electric Mini brand.  First, it was being moved to China.  With only  ICE engine models being made in Cowley.  Then 2 weeks ago it announced that the electric models would also be made in Cowley.

This is great news for the Oxfordshire site.

But the enquiry levels at the time certainly didn’t reflect that, with an immediate dip in showroom enquiries just after both events.

It looks like the buying public are more concerned about knowing exactly what is happening, slightly less than where the car is made. (which is a little sad).

I suspect that this weeks announcement is likely to worry the customer base even further.  Already listening to half the motoring press criticising the move to electric and emphasising the potential financial costs to early adopters.  Will the second wave of EV buyers be affected.  Unfortunately I think so.

During our enquiry follow up and lost sale telemarketing programmes we have seen a number of customers site that exact reason “I’m unsure about EV, so I’m going to wait a year” and “I decided to buy an old petrol / diesel model to get me through the next couple of years”

Neither response helps the retailer out.  Especially if you are struggling for sensibly priced used stock and the manufacturer has given you a solid EV target.

I assume that the government know all of this.  The car industry is professional, if the world said – “We want all cars to run on Rape Seed Oil by August 1st”, the motor trade is likely to swear for 10 minutes and then ask “What time on the 1st?”

So it is probably the Government itself that is behind with its forced introduction – we may have the cars but not the infrastructure, and may be wavering in the face of new advances for Hydrogen models.  And yet again the Motor Trade is having to pay for it.

Disappointing doesn’t really cover it.

#EV, #motortrade, #lostsales