THE car leasing aggregator site LeaseLoco says that it has seen a huge uptick for electric cars as the fuel supply crisis worsens.
The lease comparison site says it has analysed almost 1.5 million deal searches made by consumers on its platform during September.
Interrogation of the data reveals that demand for EVs has rocketed, with searches for electric car deals making up a third (33%) of all searches over the past seven days (dateline 27 September, 2021).
LeaseLoco says that it’s 13% more searches for EVs than petrol car deals, the next highest search volume. It is also a 5% increase in EV searches compared with the previous week, when EVs made up 28% of all deal searches.
In September to date, 28% of all searches have been for electric car deals, with 23% for petrol deals. In August, EV searches made up a quarter (25%) of all searches, just behind petrol (26%), says the comparison website.
The following graph shows the spike in EV searches on the LeaseLoco platform over the past seven days.
John Wilmot, CEO of LeaseLoco, said:
“The government is assuring us that the fuel supply crisis will ease in a few days, but the general public is clearly sceptical judging by the lines of cars queuing at petrol stations across the country.
“The shortage of HGV drivers is unlikely to be resolved quickly, and car owners are understandably concerned that they could be left stranded if the pumps run dry.
“The impact on electric car demand has been immediate and searches for EV deals on our platform have gone through the roof.
“Green motoring is the future and the government needs to do more to encourage car owners to early switch to electric. A fuel-supply crisis is not the ideal solution to encourage people to switch to greener motoring, but it may well make peoples’ minds up, particularly if this crisis drags on.”
Automotive and fleet writer for Broker News
