New figures reveal that demand for electric cars (EVs) has spiked over the past week as the fuel supply crisis intensifies and panic-buying has seen many of the UK’s petrol stations run dry.
Car leasing comparison website LeaseLoco, has analysed almost 1.5 million deal searches made by consumers on its platform during September.
The data reveals that demand for EVs over the past week has rocketed, with searches for electric car deals making up a third (33%) of all searches over the past seven days.
That'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 to 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%).
John Wilmot, CEO of LeaseLoco, comments: “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.”
Motorway CEO, Tom Leathes, comments: "While the fuel crisis isn’t yet impacting vehicle sales, as there is still phenomenal demand for used cars right now with prices continuing to soar, we may see some issues in terms of collection and deliveries in the short term until the crisis has been averted. People who want to buy and sell cars safely from home rely on the logistics industry to move these cars around - so if this lack of HGV drivers continues, it may start to impact car sales.
"What the crisis will definitely do however, is accelerate the journey from people questioning their current car ownership to going fully electric, particularly in London with the imminent expansion of the ULEZ next month. Those who have already made the jump to EVs are sitting smugly in front of their TVs watching the rest of the UK sit in their cars queuing for hours to get to the fuel pump.”