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Getting out among new car buyers can be a rare occurrence in this line of work, with a focus on new products and the promises of executives filling our regular days.
So it was refreshing to man the CarsGuide EV advice stand at the 2024 Sydney International EV show for the weekend and get some insight into how electric car buyers think.
Although it was a smaller footprint than Sydney Motor Shows of old, fervent visitors started filling the halls from 9am on all three days. In total, more than 30,000 bodies passed through the doors over the weekend.
The overwhelming takeaway from talking to buyers was this sect of Aussies was not at all concerned about brand history, with Toyota and Ford’s stands dramatically quieter than the barely-known start-ups from China such as Xpeng, Zeekr and Deepal.
It helps that these new marques dressed their stands to impress. Aside from a wild flying machine, XPeng also had a luxurious seven-seat people mover essentially purpose-built to generate public interest with a huge rear entertainment screen and ‘business class’ reclining rear seats with heating, cooling and foot rests.
The G6 is the first retail model from XPeng and it was also well-trafficked, along with the larger G9 the brand is considering for local release.
Zeekr turned up with the X small SUV along with a few extra bits of eye-candy like the confirmed-for-oz 009 people mover, a 475kW 007 sedan in a lewd yellow paint colour and a 001 FR the Geely-owned marque’s Polestar 2-related first model.
The other new entrant was Deepal, which is being imported by well-known company Inchcape that also handles Subaru, Foton, Peugeot and previously Citroen. Along with the classic Tesla Model Y rival, the S07 electric family SUV, Deepal had some cool stuff.
Namely, a Cybertruck-like electric and range-extender compatible E05 electric sedan-pick-up amalgamation that was catching attention.
Kia’s front-and-centre placement helped drive plenty of traffic to the brand’s new EV5 while also making Hyundai’s lack of presence quite obvious. With the Tasman due next year and the EV5’s sharp price, it’s a brand that’s sure to go from strength to strength.
Tesla’s presence was held up by the Australian owner’s club while BYD was represented by a dealer, with an unfortunate lack of Shark utes on the stand.
It was Ford and Toyota that were visibly the lowest traffic OEMs over the weekend, and Australia’s third most-popular brand Mazda didn’t even turn up with its plug-in hybrids.
With a pair of bZ4Xs on display and charge-box-on-wheels, Toyota’s wasn’t exactly a dull stand yet it proves that people are more interested in the whizz-bang new models — that’s the point of a motor show, after all.
As for Ford, despite having prime real estate among the newcomers, it seemed that not so many punters were interested in the Mach-E and plug-in hybrid Ford Ranger Stormtrak, even with the ute’s vehicle-to-load system that can power a coffee machine, TV, work tools and more.
Some other mainstream carmakers present were Audi, BMW, Cupra and Volvo though these stands were notably smaller than the others. As for other brands from China, Chery and GWM proved relatively popular but the Smart stand was quiet.
MG’s choice to only bring a Cyberster rather than the affordable MG4 seemed a bit short-sighted — next year, maybe.
The most common line of questioning was if we would recommend the XPeng G6 and what the best alternatives to a Tesla Model Y are — we fielded almost no questions about the bZ4X or plug-in hybrid Ford Ranger Stormtrak.
Plenty of test drives were taken over the three days and at one point on Sunday, you would have had to queue for four hours to sample XPeng’s new G6. But what does all this tell us about the new car landscape?
MG has already proven sharp pricing can drive mega traffic into electric vehicles and that, when EVs reach parity with combustion-engined and hybrid options, they are much more attractive. In this case, customers aren’t cross-shopping, say, a Tesla Model Y with just other EVs, but similarly-priced combustion and hybrid models, too.
Electric cars aren’t competing with themselves, but in a battle to bring the other 90.6 per cent of the new car market out of combustion and hybrid-engined choices.
Most worrying for big carmakers, though, will be the lack of brand devotion. Despite what the bZ4X advertising campaign suggests, there were very few talking about Toyota’s proven low-cost servicing or reliability. Instead, the long seven- and even ten-year warranties of newcomers seemed enough to allay most fears.
Don’t expect Toyota, Ford or Mazda sales to drop off a cliff anytime soon, but the interest and willingness of local buyers to branch out and sample an unknown product will definitely cause a headache.
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