Electric car search terms have almost trebled over last year

Online searches for all forms of used electric cars have almost trebled over the last 12 months, according to figures released by iVendi.

The motor retail technology company sees more than 9 million searches made every year by customers accessing dealer used car stock and said that terms relating to electric cars, PHEVs and hybrids, as well as specific electric models, now accounted for 1.34% of all searches compared to 0.53% a year ago.

Of these, the word “electric” is by far the most common single search and has risen two and half times.

Rob Severs, senior VP of product and insight at iVendi, said: “Electric vehicles remain a relatively small part of the used car sector with only very low volumes available but our figures show that interest is growing at a pace.

“Search terms tend to remain fairly consistent over time and big shifts are quite rare so, although this represents just 1.34% of all searches, it is a somewhat sizeable shift and one that very much indicates the future direction of the market.

“With car buyers becoming both more curious and more informed about EVs of all kinds, we believe that now is very much the right moment to be introducing this enhancement.

“We’ve worked hard to ensure that the intuitive phrases that our search engine recognises will closely match consumer use of the same language, although this is a fast-moving area and it will need to be continually modified.”