Enhancing the
Value of E-Cars

“When dri­vers con­sid­er buy­ing their first new elec­tric car, they’re usu­al­ly look­ing for ‘more value’ than before,” says Christoph Köh­ler, Man­ag­er at Porsche Con­sult­ing and an expert in the auto­mo­tive busi­ness. “Real added value is a cus­tomer ser­vice that ever more buy­ers are seek­ing and expect­ing above and beyond just the expe­ri­ence of dri­ving.” Köh­ler and his inter­dis­ci­pli­nary team have ana­lyzed the cur­rent mar­ket and defined ser­vices that add value of real ben­e­fit to both sides — to cus­tomers just as much as to mak­ers and sell­ers of new e‑cars.

“Intel­li­gent value-adding ser­vices can pro­mote fur­ther sales of elec­tric cars,” reads a pub­li­ca­tion on the “Forschungs-Infor­ma­tions-Sys­tem,” the cen­tral knowl­edge plat­form at the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry for Dig­i­tal and Trans­port. And accord­ing to the IT-Zoom indus­try por­tal, “User con­ve­nience is the key to expand­ing elec­tro­mo­bil­i­ty.” Assess­ments by the Porsche Con­sult­ing man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy show that added auto­mo­tive value doesn’t first appear when cus­tomers drive their cars, but back when they begin think­ing about elec­tric vehicles. 

As Köh­ler explains, “By cre­at­ing attrac­tive pack­ages, you can dis­pel any reser­va­tions cus­tomers might have about elec­tro­mo­bil­i­ty. These extras can take the form of solar pan­els at homes, spe­cial rates from envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly power com­pa­nies, or pref­er­en­tial access to an exten­sive net­work of high-speed charg­ing sta­tions.” He then adds, “The over­all pack­age of the car plus aux­il­iary ben­e­fits should of course also be attrac­tive in terms of price.” In other words, the con­cept of added value is twofold: use­ful extras on the one hand, cou­pled with a price ben­e­fit thanks to the pack­age solution.

This “every­thing from a sin­gle source” approach, how­ev­er, also requires a new way of think­ing from mar­ket play­ers in dif­fer­ent dis­ci­plines — includ­ing car man­u­fac­tur­ers, util­i­ty com­pa­nies, and insur­ers. “Any­one look­ing to offer pack­ages needs strong and capa­ble part­ner­ships that extend well beyond indi­vid­ual sec­tors,” says Köh­ler. Such net­works and col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts are still rel­a­tive­ly rare, observe the consultants.

As a rule, car dri­vers also want to limit their finan­cial risk. All the more so if they have lit­tle or no per­son­al expe­ri­ence with a new tech­nol­o­gy, as is cur­rent­ly the case with elec­tric dri­ve­trains. Inno­v­a­tive insur­ance poli­cies that kick in if the cost­ly high-pow­ered bat­tery units should have any prob­lems can be help­ful here. In Köhler’s view, main­te­nance pack­ages with flat fees for inspec­tion ser­vices could allay con­cerns about finan­cial surprises.

Some poten­tial buy­ers have been hes­i­tat­ing for finan­cial rea­sons not only because of the pur­chas­ing prices and oper­at­ing costs, but also the prospect of high loss­es one day in the future when they decide to sell their car. They fear that the rapid devel­op­ment of elec­tric drive sys­tems could dimin­ish the appeal of used cars whose tech­nol­o­gy is no longer cur­rent. “The argu­ments here need to be espe­cial­ly strong and con­vinc­ing,” observes Köh­ler. He rec­om­mends that deal­ers add spe­cial types of insur­ance to their port­fo­lios. By com­pen­sat­ing for steep loss­es due to advances in tech­nol­o­gy, such poli­cies can allay cus­tomers’ con­cerns about resid­ual value, whether they are buy­ing new cars or sign­ing lease agree­ments. True, sup­ple­men­tal insur­ance poli­cies would raise the total pack­age price. “How­ev­er, when we’re talk­ing about a new tech­nol­o­gy that’s unfa­mil­iar to most peo­ple, you first have to build con­fi­dence,” says the expert.

Anoth­er option that address­es tech­no­log­i­cal progress would be a guar­an­tee of the fol­low­ing sort: buy­ers of elec­tric cars can trade in their cars for com­pa­ra­ble new vehi­cles under espe­cial­ly favor­able terms if engi­neer­ing advances have extend­ed bat­tery ranges by 50 per­cent or more, for exam­ple. “That of course would require a com­plete­ly new way of think­ing on the part of man­u­fac­tur­ers and deal­ers, espe­cial­ly their sales staff,” notes Köh­ler. “Yet if prop­er­ly applied, this could be an attrac­tive means of enhanc­ing cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion, brand loy­al­ty, and future sales.”

The scope for poten­tial new forms of added value is essen­tial­ly unlim­it­ed. With mod­ern vehi­cles defined in large part also by the per­for­mance of their com­plex soft­ware, there are numer­ous ways of ful­fill­ing desires that can arise dur­ing a drive. Exam­ples include auto­mat­ed restau­rant reser­va­tions and shop­ping options while the car is stand­ing at a charg­ing sta­tion. Some mobile main­te­nance work could also be arranged elec­tron­i­cal­ly. Minor repairs and stan­dard main­te­nance pro­ce­dures, in par­tic­u­lar, no longer have to be done at a garage. Instead, the mechan­ic could go to the car — arranged quite lit­er­al­ly at the press of a button.

Sim­i­lar­ly attrac­tive solu­tions can pro­mote fur­ther sav­ings in ener­gy and costs. The bat­tery of an elec­tric car parked out­side a home can be used as a buffer ener­gy sys­tem. Power from solar pan­els can charge it and if need­ed, flow back into the house for other uses. Intel­li­gent sys­tems can ensure that the car remains ready to oper­ate at all times. As the valu­able heart of an elec­tric vehi­cle, the bat­tery would then offer espe­cial­ly eco­nom­i­cal addi­tion­al uses in ways that can also be measured.

As Köh­ler con­cludes, “Ulti­mate­ly it’s always a mat­ter of what cus­tomers real­ly need and actu­al­ly use in their every­day lives. A lot of this has yet to crys­tal­lize out. Elec­tro­mo­bil­i­ty providers need to be pre­pared for what will come and respond appro­pri­ate­ly — which means quick­ly and above all in very flex­i­ble ways.”