A new survey titled, "Unplugged: Electric vehicle realities versus consumer expectations," released by Deloitte indicates the consumer preferences on electric vehicles.
The consumers are looking forward for an electric vehicle that can travel longer distance; take the least amount of time for recharging and at an affordable cost. The survey indicates that a wide disparity exists between customer expectations on price and performance and what is offered today. It mentions that hardly 2 to 4% of the clients all over the world are happy with the current status of the electric vehicles.
The survey reflects the opinions of over 13,000 consumers spanning across 17 countries all over the world in Europe, Asia and America. Though most of them expressed their strong desire to buy electric vehicles but are not willing to arrive at a compromise on the key reference points such as performance and price. In the USA around 12% of the respondents have shown their willingness to adopt the vehicle at the first available opportunity and another 42% have expressed their willingness to consider electric vehicles using leasing or purchasing options. Nevertheless globally most of the respondents (around 85%) expressed their willingness to take a decision only on meeting the present challenges related to the travel range, charging convenience and price of the vehicles.
According to the survey, though most of the present day EVs achieve only 100 mi between the charges while, the customer expectation is as high as 300 mi. While most of the respondents look forward for shorter charging durations, around 58% of the USA respondents wanted their vehicles to get charged in two hours or less while 23% of the Americans cut down the charging time to 30 minutes and only a minor percent of them accepted the present eight hours charging duration as right.
The survey indicates that over 50% of the global clients were not willing to pay extra premium for the EV, which includes 65% of American respondents. Around 66% of the Chinese respondents expressed their willingness to pay the premium price. Over 71% of the respondents from the UK and Belgium opposed the premium payment. Out of the total 17 countries surveyed, over 50% of respondents from 11 countries anticipates a price of $20,000 or less and around 78% of American respondents were willing to pay over $30,000 for an EV.