A sharp increase in sales of new plug-in cars during September belies the true scale of skyrocketing consumer demand for zero-emissions vehicles, according to carwow, the UK’s leading car marketplace.
Carwow is reporting that 21% of all car sales concluded via its website and app during September were for battery electric vehicles (bevs), 6% were for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (phevs), and 11% were non-plug-in hybrids. These figures are significantly higher than in any previous month and also much higher than has been seen across the UK’s new car market as a whole.
More significant still, however, is the fact that enquiries for bevs and phevs via the carwow website and app during September rose by 550%, year-on-year.
Demand has been shifting rapidly away from internal combustion-engine models, with plug-in car enquiries representing 22% of all new car enquiries on the carwow site last month compared to just 6% in September 2020. This figure rose to 31% during the last week of September.
The ongoing fuel crisis, where pumps in many parts of the UK have run dry, is only accelerating demand for evs. In fact, searches for new evs on carwow increased by 28% alone on Friday 24 September compared to the previous week, were up 43% on Saturday 25th and went as high as 56% by Sunday 26th.
If consumer demand continues at its current rate, carwow predicts that half of new cars sold through its marketplace will be electric or hybrid-powered by the end of the year.
Carwow currently has nine million registered users in the UK, and its youtube channel has over six million subscribers. It is one of the biggest names in UK new car sales, and it has become a bellwether for the UK’s new car market.
“The year-on-year growth of EV enquiries, configurations and sales are proof that the electric revolution is upon us,†said Sepi Arani, Commercial Director of carwow. “As well as being facilitated by a growth in choice, this was driven in no small part by the faster availability of EV and hybrid stock. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.
“The fuel shortage has completely changed the playing field for EV sales, creating a seismic shift in consumer demand which will be here to stay. This is great news for dealerships with robust, long-term EV strategies, a potentially faster return on investment for manufacturers and a quicker route to net zero.
“At the current run-rate, it’s increasingly likely that by the end of the year half of the vehicles we help sell on carwow will be hybrid or electric. The cars we drive and the ways we own them are changing forever.â€
*Article Source http://www.carwow.co.uk
