Shift Magazine - September 2021 - 15

Ipsos Automotive. " Giving the customer
the EV experience is everything. It's what
ultimately sells the vehicle. "
That's exactly what Columbus, Ohio,
set out to do. After Ohio's capital won
the U.S. Department of Transportation's
Smart City Challenge in 2016, officials
in that city quickly realized that if they
wanted residents to use 300 new electric
chargers, they needed to work with dealerships
to encourage sales.
Approximately two dozen dealerships
in the Columbus area joined an initiative
to spur sales. Dealerships provided loaners
for use in ride-and-drives at a designated
location. In exchange, dealerships
received leads on in-market buyers. The
program contributed to the sale of about
3,200 EVs in the Columbus area.
" We were after early adopters, and
when you sync them with being ready to
buy a car and then having product available,
we were very aware of what that
would look like, " Mandy Bishop, program
manager for Smart Columbus, said on the
Shift mobility podcast last month.
- where many potential customers start
shopping - lack EV-specific information,
according to a new study released this
month and conducted by Ipsos, a global
insights-and-analytics company. The dearth
of information continues in the showroom.
Ipsos sent researchers moonlighting
as " mystery shoppers " into 201 dealerships
that sell EVs in 12 of the largest
electric-car markets in the U.S. They documented
their experiences, measuring the
sales staff's knowledge of EVs, availability
and readiness of vehicles, quality of test
drives and more for
its Electric Vehicle
Dealership Readiness Study.
While the results varied for individual
dealerships, the overall assessment was
damning. Unprepared staff were not capitalizing
on consumer interest, and Ipsos
further found " it is evident that many
dealers often are not prepared for the
EV-curious consumer. "
" EVs are often misunderstood by customers,
with the belief that they are
not as capable or as versatile as their
gas-engine counterparts, " wrote Mike
VanNieuwkuyk, senior vice president of
CASTING A WIDER NET
If there's a key change between those
early efforts in 2016 and today it's that
electrics
are no longer
the exclusive
domain of early adopters; they're now
appealing to a wider audience of shoppers.
As that customer base widens,
Plug In America, a nonprofit based in Los
Angeles that promotes a shift to plug-in
hybrids and EVs, has sought to educate
dealers and train their staffs on how to
be more effective with prospective customers.
Since 2016, its PlugStar program,
also a shopping tool for consumers, has
trained hundreds of dealerships and thousands
of salespeople.
" Car dealers are where the rubber
meets the road, " said Joel Levin, executive
director of Plug In America. " That's
where the sale gets transacted, and it's a
central part of this equation. It's a different
sale. A different business transaction than
dealers are used to. There's been some
speed bumps along the way. "
Fundamentally,
customer
around
gasoline-powered
questions
cars
are
vehicle-centric. Questions regarding EVs,
on the other hand, are about the ecosystem
needed to support the cars: Where
can customers charge? How long does
charging take? How much does it cost to
install at home-charging equipment and
then charge the battery? How quickly
does the battery degrade?
The more salespeople can have those
answers at their fingertips, and provide
real-time information from utility companies,
the better they can be at EV sales.
" Once dealers understand the technology
and can answer those questions,
they go, 'Hey, this is an easy sell, because
the cars are easy to refuel and there are
incentives available to buy them,' " said Kat
Urquhart, who manages the PlugStar program.
" A lot of times, they find EV champions
are created and they say, 'Give me
the inventory, and we can sell these cars.' "
She says salespeople trained in the
PlugStar program sell four times as many
EVs as their untrained counterparts at
the same dealerships. Dealerships that
invest in the training have seen their
plug-in hybrid sales rise 10 percent and
battery-electric sales increase 20 percent,
Urquhart said. Surveys show PlugStarcertified
dealers are twice as likely to get
a coveted five-star rating from customers
than those who are not trained.
Even for the most enthusiastic dealerships,
however, some roadblocks remain.
While negotiating group buys, Johnson
says available incentives are often dictated
to dealerships from automakers, so pricing
leeway can be limited. Sometimes, inventory
can be limited as well, making it hard
to secure a decent number of vehicles.
Nonetheless, he is certain that forging
relationships and educating dealers and
their staffs is a key to enabling widespread
adoption of EVs.
" Customers
are more knowledgeable
themselves now, and they've got friends who
have Teslas, and they've watched videos, and
they're waiting for the right time, " Johnson
said. " When we have a group buy, they say,
'Oh, I can get this amazing deal in the month
of October, and I'm ready to pull a trigger.'
There still needs to be a little bit of hand-holding
getting them to that final 'yes.' " n
september 2021 * shift 15
Shift Magazine - September 2021

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