Electric vehicles are nothing new.  In fact, the first mass-produced electric car was a Studebaker released in 1902.  In the past few years, electric vehicles have been gaining steam. But are they scalable?

A recent Deloitte study explored consumers’ changing automotive expectations and the evolving mobility ecosystem. Their main finding for their 2019 global automotive consumer study found that consumers in many global markets continue to move away from traditional combustion engines.

Consumer interest in EV’s has grown. In the U.S. 26% of people would prefer an EV as their next car. This interest increased from 18% in 2018.  Although interest in electric vehicles is trending up, it represents the lowest interest across all global automotive markets. For example, China represents that largest market at 65%.

Electric vehicles are starting to scale in Europe and Asia.  One of the reasons they haven’t scaled at the same pace in the US is gas prices.

In addition, the study finds that consumers are starting to slow their interest in autonomous vehicles over safety concerns and have become reluctant to pay more for connectivity. 

With shifting consumer interest into the EV market, it represents an opportunity for dealerships, and they will need to prepare to scale alongside the consumers’ interest. Demand is increasing, and Tesla has experienced a drop in consumer trust, according to AMCI’s Trust Study, due to their OEM pushing volume over customer experience.  Dealers who can scale and meet increased demand will have an advantage.

With all global markets slowly moving away from internal combustion engines and into EV’s it is clear that the U.S. is the slowest to adopt the trend. With the consumer beginning to scale into the EV market time will tell when that will be the majority of new vehicle sales in the U.S. but that time is not coming anytime soon.