The market research company Uscale, which specializes in electric mobility, asked around 3,400 owners of electric cars about their everyday experiences this year. Which car is good, which is bad and what are the biggest problems with plug-in cars? The road to electrical normality is even further than many think. “We asked the e-car drivers for all the details of their cars. But in the end what counts is whether the respondents would recommend their car to a friend or colleague. There are very big differences between the brands here,” explains Dr. Axel Sprenger, Managing Director of Uscale.
But it’s not just about the brands themselves, because the differences are sometimes considerable, especially at model level. For example, the latest electric BMW models such as iX, iX3 and i4 perform significantly better than the aging BMW i3. At Volkswagen, on the other hand, the ID3 and the technically outdated e-Golf are almost equal in terms of the recommendation rate. However, the survey also shows that there is more to an electric car than just range. However, this is still an important issue for motorists. However, only 42 percent of those surveyed see a major need for action for manufacturers when it comes to range. At 39 percent, charging power is just as important to almost as many. Ultimately, range and charging capacity are directly related, because if you can charge quickly, a short range is less of a problem.
When it comes to the ranking of electric brands, there is one winner that should come as no surprise to many: Tesla. Tesla customers are particularly satisfied with their electric car. 81 percent would recommend him at any time. The Chinese-Swedish manufacturer Polestar follows closely behind in second place with 80 percent, before Kia and Skoda (each 58 percent) follow in third place with a huge deficit. The three brands Ford, Mercedes and BMW are behind them in fourth, fifth and sixth place – each with recommendation rates of over 50 percent. The Japanese manufacturer Nissan performed the worst in this representative survey of electric car brands. The two Stellantis brands Opel and Peugeot as well as Aiways from China are somewhat surprising in the negative area.
The values shown are mean values for all models of the respective brand. At BMW, the new models such as i4 / iX perform significantly better than the technologically outdated and now discontinued i3. At Mercedes, models such as the EQA and EQC are mainly included in the study. EQE and EQS are technologically more recent, but not yet included in the study. Quite surprising: the Ford Mustang Mach-E performed significantly better than the established ID models from Volkswagen. The Mach-E is based on Ford’s own platform from the USA. In the coming year, Ford will present an electric crossover based on VW’s MEB platform as an indirect successor to the small Fiesta. The models from VW and Skoda already share a platform, but apparently differ so greatly in various places that this leads to significantly different perceptions by the user. Conversely, the Stellantis sister brands Opel and Peugeot behave. Opel and Peugeot clearly share a large part of their genes, while Fiat goes its own way and performs significantly better than its two sister brands. Also surprising is the poor performance of Aiways. At Nissan, the last model year of the Leaf was evaluated and the new Ariya was not yet reflected. Tesla, winner of the survey, does not do well in terms of processing quality and noise development. The two German premium brands Audi and Porsche suffer in particular from software problems and high real consumption. It also provides a topic of conversation at Polestar and a Connect app that was introduced too late.
But what is still important to drivers of electric cars? In order to get through everyday life safely with your own electric car, you need more than charging cards and apps. EV drivers need a number of additional displays related to range or energy consumption. In addition, there are important functions in connection with route and charging planning as well as the management of the charging process itself. Half of those surveyed believe that there is an urgent need for action by the manufacturer of their electric model when it comes to route planning alone.
Another focus of customer interest is the software and app control for operating and monitoring the vehicle. The app is much more important for electric cars than for comparable combustion models. From the point of view of those surveyed, many manufacturers are not able to offer convincing concepts here. As a further important point, the respondents mention problems with quality and especially with the acoustics. Tesla drivers in particular complain about processing defects here. dr Axel Sprenger: “It is important that the developers in the car companies receive direct feedback and set the right priorities. Electric cars need to get better fast. In twelve years’ time, car buyers shouldn’t just buy an e-car “of necessity”, they should make the switch long before that.”
