Barriers to the use of e-cars: Quantilope

The consciousness and the willingness to change has not stopped at me. So, not too long ago, I decided to take the initiative and switch from my diesel-engined car to an e-car. But before I 'jumped', I discussed many points in my private circle that spoke against it. Is my normal route short enough for the battery range? Are there enough charging options? How safe is the car in winter? And many more questions... For answers to many questions, reports on the experiences of other users proved helpful. But in the end, the decision was made easier by the thought that we still have another 'normal' car in the household and if we need it, I can still drive longer distances with it. 

This self-experiment then also led me to the question of what the situation is like in general. How do other consumers who are willing to switch think about it? That was the starting point for a study on 'A study on barriers to e-technology and the customer journey from the customer's point of view when buying an e-car'. 

The aim was and is to analyse current barriers and different phases of the customer journey of customers in Germany and thus to point out:

• low-threshold starting points for increasing technology acceptance and 
• integration of digital consulting solutions for e-car purchases

In a study carried out by Quantilope in August 2020, 100 people answered various questions posed by the institute. 92% used gasoline or diesel engines. The first associations confirm initial thoughts when considering electric cars: range, expensive, quiet, battery, environmentally friendly, charging station and Tesla. This is not surprising. But it gets more interesting when you look specifically at the results on the question of barriers:

The price-performance ratio follows at a considerable distance, deterring 52% of respondents from buying an e-car. 

Many of the barriers could be addressed with communicative measures by the car companies. Just one example and an interesting point was particularly item 3 on the list of barriers. The difficulty of finding charging stations. From a consumer perspective, I can tell you that this point has several facets. Finding a charging station is like a GeoCaching event in Germany. There are now a large number of freeway service areas where, in fast charging mode, in my case you can fully charge the battery of the car in about 30 minutes. But not only that on the freeway itself the signage is very discreet or even sometimes non-existent. On the freeway service areas itself, the signage is almost completely missing and you have to have trained eyes to see the charging stations directly. It is even worse in the cities, almost barely visible is the motto. In addition, the apps that you can use for the charging stations now tend more and more to show only your own contract columns and not the others. So, you click through various apps so that you can find a charging option in the vicinity, at least on the navigation. That's a short-term starting point, not to mention the issue of infrastructure expansion. There would be a lot more to say, but if I have encouraged thoughts to continue, I have already achieved a lot. 

But what motivates consumers to drive an e-car now? You can read about that in my next blog post in 1 week.