Buying a New Car is inefficient, its no wonder that electric vehicle sales are still pretty low.

The buying experience of a new car for each of us is different, but the one similarity for all of us is its inefficiency. There are roughly 5000 different makes, models and specs of vehicles in the UK and from that list, you need to find just one, but how can you be sure it’s the right one

Each of us has a different approach to buying a new car. Here are just some examples:

  • The brand ambassador will stick to a brand and a model, buying the 5th ford focus in succession, entirely blinkered for any other option on the market.
  • The Deal Seeker will see an amazing deal, an awesome looking car online or in a dealership, it may be a car that they had never considered before but, by chance, it ticks all the boxes.  They don’t care that its an end of line car with an older engine and a socket for a nokia 6310, its cheap and its better than what they are driving today.
  • The pedants are methodical they start with a list of “must-have” attributes, such as it must have 7 seats, four-wheel drive and a towing capacity of 1600 kilos. Because once a year they take the caravan and the kids to wales for a week.
  • The early adopters, the ones at the vanguard of the new tech; it must be the latest car with the latest engine or battery technology, they don’t care that it got some frankly bizarre features and it’s going to cost us an arm and a leg, it’s new and shiny, and they must have it

What’s wrong with al the options above?  Well, they are inefficient, it means we focus on just a small number of vehicles and technologies ignoring other factors such as ongoing costs, fuel economy, a car that’s fit for purpose, buying a car that’s perfect for one week of the year and incredibly inefficient for the rest of the year.

This inefficiency and our buying behaviours are part of the reason why many of us miss out on electric vehicles.  For a start, some of the best-sellers come from brands that most of us have never owned or even driven, so there is no brand loyalty, also as the tech is new and end of the line you are not as likely to see the amazing deals that tempt us in. For some of us if it’s not diesel and cant tow a horsebox over the Brecon beacons on a Sunday in July, then we are not interested.

Our inefficient buying habits often lead us to buy what we are used to and keep it safe. There is nothing wrong with safe, but if we always played it safe in life, we would not achieve much. Playing it safe and not making an effort to talk to that girl or boy you like to avoid possible rejection means you won’t find love in life and do you think Edmund Hillary would be well known if he played it safe.

Now I am not saying you should climb Everest, but opening your eyes to other “riskier” possibilities could be beneficial.

Why should you consider electric vehicles:

It’s simple:

  • For many of us operating an electric vehicle instead of a petrol or diesel car could mean you save anything from £1000 to £5000 a year
  • Electric vehicles are zero-emissions meaning the air we all breathe is cleaner.
  • There are over 600 Battery EV’s on the market today and its very likely that at least one will suit your needs perfectly

What can you do to be more efficient

You may ask yourself though, how do I find the perfect electric car for my needs.  Well that where CleanCar helps, that’s what we do.

The steps are easy:

  1. Download the CleanCar app
  2. Enable GPS
  3. Drive about as usual with the phone in your car.

CleanCar recognises your car journeys and builds them into a profile; we then use this profile to find electric vehicles that will fit your needs; finally, we show you the running costs of an EV based on your usage, over say the next 3 or 4 years.

Why is this approach “efficient.”, well it enables you to automatically compare thousands of potential vehicles and rule out the ones that will not suit your needs, leaving you with a list of vehicles that will work for you, it then shows you exactly what each one will cost.  It means that with no effort, you are able to find a list of suitable vehicles.

Want to find out more about CleanCar, drop us a line info@cleanacar.io