What are buyers/intenders interested in?

By Gary S. Vasilash

Carvana, the purveyor of used vehicles, has discovered that EV investigators are spending more time searching based on a 226% increase in the number of page views on its site for the vehicles compared to Q3 2023.

The top five vehicles, according to its “EV Trends Report,” searched for are:

• Tesla Model 3
• Ford Mustang MACH-E
• Hyundai IONIQ 5
• Kia EV 6
• Nissan LEAF

Given that there are hundreds of thousands of Model 3s out there right now, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that people are looking, perhaps, to score a deal on a pre-owned one.

The LEAF’s long time in market probably helps explain its presence.

But it is somewhat surprising that given that the IONIQ 5 and EV 6 are comparatively new (the Hyundai came out in December 2021 and the Kia in January 2022), they are on the list, not the Chevy Bolt, which was launched in December 2016, so there are undoubtedly more of them available on the used market.

But that is clearly ICE thinking.

Carvana found that the average model year search range for EVs was from 2020 to 2023. The average search range for ICE vehicles was 2018 to 2023.

So potential used EV buyers are interested in what’s newer.

What are the features EV searchers are interested in?

• Third-row seat
• Heated steering wheel
• Apple CarPlay
• Sunroof
• Adaptive cruise control

Features that indicate EVs are being generally perceived as being a “regular vehicle”: ICE searchers were also interested in third-row seating and a sunroof. Rather than a heated steering wheel, it is heated seats. And Apple CarPlay and adaptive cruise are replaced by a rear-view camera and a tow hitch. (Perhaps the last-named has something to do with why the F-150 Lightning was knocked off the list and the MACH-E on it: towing with an EV is not particularly good, so EV intenders probably are no longer interested in that possibility.)