Sustainable mobility

Sustainability is clearly a hot topic for the automotive industry, and one that has attracted considerable research.

Even so, in our work with large automotive OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), we have become aware of an aspect that is not so well understood: the consumer’s perspective on automotive sustainability.

Consumer interest and willingness to pay for sustainable products such as food or clothing have been constantly on the rise in recent years. The same seems to be true of eco-friendly cars, with EV sales soaring in 2020. But it is not so clear whether this trend is driven by customer enthusiasm about sustainability, or is instead due to substantial government incentives.

We therefore investigated what consumers really experience when they decide to buy a car, from initial awareness to the point when they have bought and are using the vehicle. We were particularly interested in the perspective of consumers who already have a high level of interest in sustainability, and whether the journey tapped into and increased their enthusiasm: an aspect that we refer to as the “excitement factor.”

In this report, you can read more about the background to our research and about our method. We present our results and recommend ways OEMs can use the findings to start giving customers the consistent sustainability experience that they really want.