What is driving consumers to buy electric cars

Starcount’s most recent event looked into the future of the EV market and analysed why consumers buy electric cars. By looking at the current EV market we investigated what is affecting consumers, examining the global appetite, understanding the barriers that face UK consumers switching to electric and what challenges EV manufacturers might face.  

Manufacturers need to find a way to convince their consumers to buy electric cars and understanding their consumer market will be essential to the success of their brand. Once EV makers fully appreciate the barriers facing their market they will be able to formulate the right strategy to overcome these challenges. 

To find out more about the current EV market and the barriers ahead download our whitepaper here. 

Gaining a competitive advantage 

Our Starcount Observatory platform uses social media data to understand in more detail consumers interests (passions) and their mindsets to better determine why they purchase and what drives their behaviour. We have gained insight into the four main consumer motivations that make them want to buy an electric car.

By looking at consumers passions we can determine what drives consumers to buy an electric car. Starcount’s unique social data collection technique combined with traditional research revealed the four main motivations that drive EV consumers:

• Tech Enthusiasts – driven by their passion for gadgets, science and engineering. 
• Climate Conscious – defined by their environmental responsibility to tackle emissions, and their need to live in a ‘sustainable’ way.  
• Motorheads – decisions are fuelled by a love of cars and a need to explore the newest innovations in motoring. 
• Savvy Spenders – conscious about making their money go further and making considered decisions about purchases. 

These motivations make up the cornerstones of the EV consumer base and are vital to understanding why they buy.

How to overcome consumer barriers 

Once EV manufacturers understand the market and where they are positioned they can begin to tailor how their brand is presented. Communicating the right features in an EV that overcome the barriers of your targeted market, will allow EV companies to create the right customer experience for their market. 

Starcount looks at each of the four motivations that drive consumers to buy electric cars and analyses what features resonate with that audience. By looking into the lifestyle of consumers and understanding what they follow, we can attribute that to certain features they will look for in a new electric car. 

For example, by looking at our data for our ‘savvy saver’ consumer we understand they are family people, focused on needing boot space and wanting the latest safety features. They are not interested in sporty aesthetics and gadgets, they would prefer to know about the financial plan for an electric car as that is what they value the most. 

Discover more about these motivations by reading our last blog about the Consumer mindsets for the electric vehicles market. 

Target the right customer and prospect to grow your sales 

Once EV manufacturers know their market and how they want to target them, that is where Starcount can help EV makers find new customers by using Starcount Audiences. 

Audiences uses geographic data of 29 million UK households which account for 53 million consumers. We overlay our demographic data, ‘passion’ and motivational data to bring together the latest industry insights. This helps EV brands profile their current customers as well as finding lookalikes who share the same interests in their products. 

An example of Audiences in action is that we can overlay charging point data in the UK to help EV makers understand the current infrastructure, thereby eliminating areas where there is no support for EVs and instead focus on areas that are optimized for electric cars.    

Read our most recent blog post about Targeting customers & prospects in the electric vehicles market to find out more. 

Our brochure takes a deeper dive into each of the consumer mindsets and the global EV market, giving a background to the current global appetite for EVs, more information on the barriers to purchase, how to gain a competitive advantage in the market and how to target the right customers and prospects to grow sales. 

To find out more and to see how Starcount can help you, click on the link below to download the full whitepaper.