Electric vehicle buying intentions not becoming a reality, says CLM

A lack of education is leading more drivers to say they intend to buy an electric vehicle than actually do, says CLM.

Research into 400 drivers’ attitudes towards alternative fuel vehicles (AFV) by the fleet management specialist found 24% would be likely or very likely to consider a pure electric car, 32% would consider a plug-in hybrid and 36% a hybrid.

However, the year-to-date market share of AFVs is just 5.8% of registrations. Pure electric cars accounted for 0.57% of registrations in the first eight months of 2018, PHEVs 1.83% and hybrids with 3.38%.

John Lawrence, managing director at CLM, said that the discrepancy gap between actual sales and intentions still appeared to result from a lack of understanding and education.

He said: “We have seen the choice of AFVs grow considerably in the last year, and while this will certainly have helped to find new adopters, there are still many people who don’t understand the technology and how it performs.”

Lawrence cited other findings from the research as evidence of the lack of knowledge in this area.

“While 64% of drivers were able to choose a correct definition of a pure electric car, only 38% managed the same task for HEVs and just 26% for PHEVs. If we are still struggling with basic understanding, it’s not very surprising that when it comes to the crunch drivers stick with what they know.”