It’s hard to quantify the demand or even the interest in Hybrid or Electric power in the car industry among buyers, particularly when the numbers of Electric cars are so small, and Hybrid vehicles are starting to merge so quickly with their petrol-powered siblings that we’re not even noticing the revolution happening under our noses.
Unless you’ve got a keen eye for the blue glow around the Toyota Logo on their Hybrid cars, you might not realise their Hybrid powered Corolla’s and RAV4 vehicles – which look identical to the Petrol models aside from that blue glow – are selling in big numbers.
And the push to go Electric isn’t just coming from the Tesla fan-boys any more. A survey of over 22,000 Victorians by EastLink has shown for the first time that the prefernce among respondents for their next car is that it has Hybrid Power – with Petrol and Deisel dropping behind.
This is a big moment for the car industry when you think about it, and as the survey shows – people are well aware of the change that’s coming.
But they also know the reasons why they aren’t getting on board – just yet.
The EastLink survey shows that the biggest barrier to entry is – wait for it – cost. 72% of people cite cost as the biggest barrier, with lack of charging facilities away from home and then driving range coming in after that.
Which is strange in some ways, because it also shows the lack of education out there – people’s concerns about charging don’t mix with the way they drive and park their cars:
If you park overnight at home, you can charge overnight at home – just plug it in – nothing new required.
Of course, you can install equipment to make that neater, and even faster – but the fundamentals are clear – park and charge overnight at home.
Looking at the barriers to entry, most people believe that Governments should be providing incentives to drive the take-up of EVs – Doug Spencer-Roy from EastLink says “In particular, motorists told us they want Government incentives that will reduce the up-front purchase price as well as reduce the cost of annual registration for electric vehicles.”
With the hope those costs come down, you can see clearly we’re in for a radical change to buying habits over the next 10 years:
It’s not all good news for the car industry when it comes to all these fancy new cars – plenty of people have become disillusioned with the concept of “Self-Driving” Cars – there was a “sizeable decrease” in the proportion of drivers who could envisage a future with hands-off driving on our freeways.
The demand for any fully self-driving on our roads was significantly lower than it was two years ago. Don’t worry, it’s not happening any time soon folks.
