Mr. and Mrs. Car Buyer, Alternative Powertrains?
Friday, November 15, 2013 at 1:30PM Grant Gerke 
Click on image to expand. Consumer preferences for alternative powertrains. (Source: Navigant Research)A new 2013 EV Consumer Survey from Navigant Research (www.navigantresearch.com) measures awareness from the “general” car-buying public in this study of 1,083 participants. Overall, the survey includes not only battery electric vehicles (BEV), but also hybrids (gas/electric) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) in this quick snaphshot of consumer feelings toward alternative powertrains.
The big takeaway with this survey was the demand for high mileage among the participants, the “MPG Mindshift” as I have documented here at EV Parade. In the Navigant survey, consumers were asked what options were most important to them in buying their next car and topping the list of features was high fuel economy, selected as the first choice by nearly half of all respondents.
Findings released by Strategic Vision (www.stretegicvision.com) and presented at this year’s SAE Hybrid and
Click on image to expand. This questions offers some context in buying a PHEV vehicle, similar to the Chevy Volt. (Source: Navigant Research) Electric Vehicle event revealed alternative powertrain car buyers weighted these three factors at the top:1) reliability, 2) durability and 3) quality of workmanship. At the bottom, fuel economy came in at twelve.
Other findings of interest was the survey's conclusion that only 30 percent would be interested in a PHEV at a price point of $28,000, after incentives (see image, above right). I like this data point and its setup shows an electric gallon price of $0.75, but not provided is the average cost of a gallon of gas.
Is it possible those buying percentages could increase by five to nine percent if you provide the average cost of a gallon of gas in 2012, $3.64 gallon, next to the $0.75 electric gallon in the questionnaire??
Other surprises include BMW i3 ranked higher in vehicle familiarity than the Model S (Volt #1 & Leaf #2) and the survey shows “the majority of consumers say they plan to spend less than $25,000 on their next vehicle.” Most EVs and PHEVs are above that price point.
For a copy of the report, visit http://www.navigantresearch.com/research/electric-vehicle-consumer-survey
Reader Comments (2)
According to the report most of the people prefer vehicles which shows better mileage. Now fuel price is increasing rapidly so people are interested in fuel efficient vehicle. Now people are interested in hybrids and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Not only fuel efficiency but also these three factors such as reliability, durability and maintenance are also taking into consideration at the time of buying a vehicle by the customers.
I thought it was interesting about the "final question" in the scenario section of the report. A lot of folks were not interested at all in in great mileage at a pretty nice price point, around 30+%. http://www.electricvehicleparade.com/storage/131115EVconsumer3.png