Petrol station queues, boarded-up pumps and limits on fill-ups. This week Britain has been gripped by a fuel crisis that has not only led to panic buying petrol, but also attempts to panic buy electric vehicles (EV).
Google search data showed a 1,600% surge in EV on Monday. Meanwhile, Auto Trader logged a 61% increase in interest for electric cars and Carwow saw a 59% uplift.
Britain’s fuel shortage has pushed the general public to seriously consider buying electric vehicles, which have long been the preserve of EV enthusiasts, according to Stephen Kenwright, co-founder of SEO agency Rise at Seven.
Prior to the petrol crisis Kenwright said Tesla and ‘Tesla shares’ were the dominate searches related to EV, receiving 450,000 and 670,000 searches per month respectively.
Since the crisis, Kenwright said searches for ‘electric vehicle’ is now the dominate trend.
“All of a sudden people who had no interest in the EV market are now searching EV and researching if they are affordable,” Kenwright said.
Previously EV brands have used technical and features-based SEO messaging to reach consumers already engaged with EV.
Kenwright advised brands hoping to capture this new demographic to use top funnel phrases.
“EV marketers now need to assume most people don’t know anything about EV and instead use very broad educational search topics and avoid going straight to purchase,” he said.
Elsewhere, Kenwright said there hasn’t been noticeable spikes in individual brands being searched as people don’t know which companies to narrow down.
Auto Trader’s search data from September 24-26 has, however, revealed Hyundai’s Ioniq 5, Ford’s Mustang Mach-E, Mercedes-Benz EQA and MG’s MG5 were catapulted to its top four most-searched cars list.
Will EV brands look to capitalize on Britain’s fuel shortage?
Surely this is the perfect time for car companies to increase ad spend on its EV brands to anxiety-driven motorists?
However, Kinetic’s chief client officer Nicole Lonsdale said: “Many motor brands don’t want to be seen to capitalize on the petrol panic buying.”
Car companies have generally been increasing spend to support EV, she said, and the spend merely coincides with firms bringing out new models and the growing market trend toward sustainability.
Kenwright added that pandemic and Brexit-related car shortages have made car brands hesitant to invest in SEO.
“If you want to buy an electric or hybrid you are looking at a six to 12-month wait, there would be very little inputs on a dealer to shift these cars quicker than they can meet demand,” Kenwright said.