EV Financing and Insurance Study 2024

Segmentation criteria:

• Type of financing (cash purchase, financing, private leasing, business leasing)
• Various attitudinal variables regarding financing and insurance
• Demographics of e-car drivers (age groups, household income)
• Living situation (size of residence, size of house)
• Driving habits (kilometres driven per year)
• Company vs. private car

Information phase financing

• Attitudes towards buying a vehicle
• Perceived level of information about electric cars, financing and insurance
• Factors influencing the choice of vehicle
• Relevance of cost types for vehicle choice
• Purchase contract location
• Negotiation type
• Purchase price and negotiated discount

Completion of financing contract:

• Types of purchase (cash purchase/financing/leasing/subscription, etc.) considered
• Type of purchase selected (cash purchase/financing/leasing/subscription, etc.)
• Reasons for/against cash purchase
• Reasons for/against credit
• Reasons for/against leasing
• Reasons for/against subscription

Banks for financing/leasing/subscription:

• Shortlisted banks
• Selected banks
• Reasons for the choice of bank
• Change of bank compared to previous vehicle
• Reasons for changing banks
• Type of contract (full service vs. individual choice)
• Additional services
• Actual vs. desired term
• Monthly payment
• Satisfaction with dealer
• Satisfaction with financing process
• Satisfaction with financing partner

Interest in additional products:

• Interest in additional services (charging cards / sustainability of financing / financing of additional charging technology or photovoltaics)
• Surcharge for green finance offers
• Product market fit and willingness to buy finance-on-demand (i.e. possibility to adjust contractual conditions of loan and leasing contracts during the term), purchase drivers, purchase barriers

Insurance:

• Place of purchase (where the policy was taken out)
• Type of contract
• Chosen insurance
• Satisfaction with insurance partner
• Satisfaction with the purchase process

Data sensitivity:

• Willingness to share various data from the vehicle
• Trust in the vehicle brand, the dealer, the insurance company, the bank or the leasing partner in connection with the sharing of data
• Use of the Connect app
• Reasons against using the Connect app

Outlook for next vehicle:

• planned drive type
• planned brand
• planned type of financing
• planned financing partner
• planned insurance
• New vs. used car

Drivers and buyers of fully battery electric vehicles (BEV) were surveyed for the study. The average holding period of the respondents was 9 months. For comparison, drivers of hybrid vehicles (HEV and PHEV) and combustion engines were surveyed.

The study is mainly aimed at business developers, product managers and marketing experts at captive and non-captive auto banks, leasing companies, and insurers.

The study shows EV buyers’ specific information needs, the products they choose, and their interest in new offerings. This helps providers build on their strengths and address their weaknesses. Product managers get a solid basis for developing or revising their own offerings.

Many of the most useful findings only show up when you break results down by customer group. That lets providers tailor their offers to each segment. With a large sample, subscribers can split the results any way they like in the interactive dashboard and dig into the details. In addition, the dashboard shows over 25,000 pre-clustered verbatim mentions of the respondents.

Since 2018, USCALE has surveyed EV drivers about their expectations and experiences at every touchpoint of the customer journey. See all USCALE multi-client studies here. For a summary of our EV customer research, see EV Consumer Behavior and Perceptions.

We publish excerpts from our studies in LinkedIn posts by USCALE and our founder, Axel Sprenger.

This study was conducted in cooperation with MiiOS Research, which contributed its extensive experience in customer research for both automotive banks and insurance companies.

If you have any questions, please contact us at contact@uscale.digital or MiiOS Research at info@miios.de.