Annual Global Mobility Study 2024 (Europe)

Welcome everyone to the eighth Annual Global Mobility Study. We're going to start in a few minutes, so just hang on tight and we'll be starting shortly.

Okay.

Welcome everyone to the eighth annual Global Mobility Study. My name is James Carter. I'm Principal Consultant of Vision Mobility. And we'd like to welcome everyone here today that's attending to hear what we've got to say.

So I'd like to start off by doing an introduction.

As mentioned, I'm James. I'm the founder of Vision Mobility. And with me today is going to is Bikram Basu. Bikram, how are you, mate?

Very well. Thanks. Glad to do this with you again. Our eighth eighth year in a row.

I know. It's crazy, isn't it? So I was just saying before, I think this is my twentieth webinar that we've done of this over the years. So it's really quite amazing, and we've got a lot of longitudinal data here to really be able to show everyone. Before we get going, Dave Fish, CEO of Curiosity CX, he will be joining us, towards the end today.

But, yes, Dave will be here and he will be, saying hi.

Before we jump in, there's a couple of things that we really need to just talk about just briefly, kind of housekeeping things. Firstly, the recording of this webinar will be available for everyone to see once it's completed up and running. And if you would like the link, let us know and we'll try and get that out to you. The second thing is please make sure to put any questions that you might have in the q and a alongside.

That way, right at the end, we can answer your questions. So pop them in, have a think about it, and we'll make sure to answer them. So let's have a look at our study here. So we have collected a lot of data over those eight years. And as you can see, this year we added three thousand one hundred and sixty three respondents. But over the years, we've got thirty one thousand responses worth of data from US, ten from Canada, and a whole bunch from Europe, China and also Australia.

This is a big big study.

We wanted to just let you know a little bit about how we do this study. So first, we put in our primary research. We put panels out across across those countries that we mentioned. We bring it in. We also bring in secondary research. Then we lay it all out and we think about, hey, what's going on here? So that's the way we think about it and we come to some conclusions.

So what's our agenda today? So we're going to start on the reflections of last year of twenty twenty three. Then we're going go through the general mobility and travel patterns, EV adoption, and we've got quite a bit to talk about on that, as well as the future mobility. And we've come up with some really interesting scenarios for everyone to have a think about.

So let's jump into these reflections on twenty twenty three.

So what we really wanted to have a look at here was what are the overall overarching shifting thoughts and concerns that we're seeing out there? What are the key topics?

Back before COVID, we saw shared mobility, renewable energy and environmental concern really being starting to come to the forefront. But twenty twenty came around, COVID just turned everything on its head. And so everything that year and in twenty twenty one was about what the impacts were. And then in twenty twenty one, what the recovery from COVID was. We also saw COVID start to bring some really interesting things to the forefront, such as environmental issues.

As we've progressed, we've seen twenty twenty two cost of living skyrocket as interest rates went up and inflation became crazy.

Now as we shift into twenty twenty three, some of those cost of living things are still there, but starting to come back. But we are starting to see more things. Things like shifting EV concerns, return to travel, and perhaps even commercial robotaxi launch sometime down the track.

Really, this last year has really seen a lot of ambitious new projects come. And we've seen some big things really start to happen. So I'm just going to pick out a couple of these things here, but we can go back at your leisure and take a look. So what we some of these things here. We saw Zoox start their initial robo taxi service in Las Vegas.

We saw Cruise on the other hand and GM actually halt their operations with autonomous due to safety concerns.

We saw UK postponing their IC ban back from two thousand and thirty to two thousand thirty five in line with Europe.

We saw Main Mobility land a bunch of funding. Tesla launched the rather incredible Cybertruck.

Hertz buying a bunch of EVs and then saying, hey, we're gonna sell them, and we we don't wanna have as much to do with these as anymore.

We saw Free2Move grow their footprint.

We saw VinFast do a big IPO when we saw it's an incredible spike in their share price.

Bird went bankrupt. Nissan invested a bunch of new money in EVs. So lots of things going on.

So let's have a look at some of the general mobility and travel patterns that we're seeing this year.

Firstly, mobility activity. So this is about how usage of transport has changed relative to last year by the mode and by the country. So let's have a look at the first one. Right across the board, we see driving a petrol or diesel or gas vehicle or truck for personal use generally increase. About the only one that didn't really increase was Canada and stayed about the same. Local transportation has gone up almost across the board, except a little bit in France. These are things like buses, subways, local transit.

What about long distance public transport such as rail? Right across the board, again except for France, we've seen this increase.

What about using a cab or a taxi?

Generally increases, but we've seen in Canada and Germany that actually go down versus last year. Ride hailing similar general increases, but Germany and Spain have gone come back a little bit.

So why are these things happening? In part, it's driven from a gradual return to work or return to office from the COVID area. So if we have a look at days spent working from home relative to twenty twenty one, what we're seeing is except generally across the board, we're seeing a decrease in days worked from home. You can probably the biggest decrease is where I am here in Canada from eighty two days a year working from home coming back to sixty eight. That's a a reasonable drop.

And again, right across the board, we're seeing the same thing. However, these are still high. These are still much higher relative to twenty nineteen.

Yet when we have a look at transit patterns versus twenty nineteen, I. E. Pre COVID, what we're still seeing is that in general, things have not come back to where they were. If you have a look at driving a petrol or diesel gas or truck for personal use, way down compared to twenty nineteen.

In general, local transportation remains down compared to twenty nineteen, except interestingly the US. But really, the US does not have the same reliance on public transit as does European and other countries.

Long distance public transportation and rail, still down except for Spain and US.

Using a cab and ride hailing, also all still well down from twenty nineteen.

One thing that we measure every year is sentiment towards car ownership. And this is one of the longitudinal studies that we've done right across the board back since twenty seventeen where we have asked, if I didn't have to own a car, I wouldn't. Do you agree or disagree with that statement?

Really, what we're trying to get at here is how much of a necessity is owning a car. What we saw from twenty seventeen through to twenty twenty one is an increase in that negative sentiment towards the vehicle.

However, from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty three, we'd actually see that come back. In fact, it's returned to levels similar to twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen, which for us is really surprising.

We think this is likely due to return to work in person and growing prevalence of EVs across countries such as US and in Europe.

What we also found quite fascinating is that interest in environmentally friendly transportation has increased right across the board from twenty twenty two in all countries except the US and UK. So let's have a look at that. What we want to do is compare the amount of green on the left hand side to compare the amount of green on the right hand side. And as you can see, the amount of green right across all countries has got significantly bigger, except again for the UK.

Now what is also interesting is that there's also more orange. So what we're starting to see is there's a little bit of polarization in some countries towards environmentally friendly transportation starting to take place.

However, encouragingly, people are thinking much more clearly about this. And you can see that dark green, that significantly interested in environmentally friendly transportation being very clear.

What about usage modes of transportation of green modes of transportation? So we're going to look at some like electric vehicles here, and we can see a general increase across the board, except for Canada, which is right in the middle.

The good news is that most of what we might call micromobility is up across the board. Things like electric scooting, share sharing, bike sharing, owning an electric scooter, owning a bike, or walking more are all generally up except for Germany and except for Spain when it comes to bicycle sharing.

But generally, this is good news.

Penetration of transportation modes versus twenty twenty three has generally increased. And what we've seen here is driving vehicles for personal use. We can see that versus twenty nineteen vehicles driven for personal use is up.

However, you can see it's actually come right back as people from the peak of seventy nine percent back in twenty two, why has it come back? The reason really, the reason is is return to work and people have been feeling more comfortable about using transit.

If we have a look at using local public transport here, we can see it's returned back to pre COVID levels, so it's flat.

Long distance public transportation is up, as is airlines using a cab or limousine, rental car ride hailing, shared services, P2P, car sharing and also semi autonomous vehicle usage are all up across the board versus twenty nineteen.

So once we have a look here, what of these respondents have used these forms of transportation in the last three months? And you can see here that from a low of twenty four percent in the US have ridden the bike up to a high of Germany, France and China between forty eight percent and fifty one percent have all used their own bikes at least once in the last three months.

Scooter sharing, certainly not as high as bicycles, but we are up between eleven percent and fourteen percent on highs of seeing scooter usage.

Using bike share, obviously extremely popular in China.

But again, that we're seeing a percentage of respondents in other countries between six percent and eighteen percent.

Electric scooter share less popular, but generally, you know, we're seeing a significant proportion of the population using it.

Okay. With that, I'm going to hand over to Bikram here and he is going to run us through EV adoption. Over to you, Bikram.

Thanks, James.

So I will now report on how things have developed from the survey in relation to EV adoption.

This is something that we've spent a bit more time on this time around.

So first of all, we asked people in the survey what their appetite is to purchase a new car within the next three years and the appetite seems to be quite strong despite the economic challenges that there have been. And in most countries the intention is to buy a brand new car as well, so between fifty to ninety percent are intending to buy a new car, if they are buying a car.

So then we also ask then what is their intention if they buy a car, to buy a battery electric vehicle? And here we've just made a contrast between the survey this year and the results from last year.

And you can see that apart from China and in France, we have seen a bit of a softening in the intention to purchase a battery electric vehicle.

And in the timeline that James showed earlier, there's a few events here that may be contributing to this. So for example, we've seen the change in legislation in the UK market where they've loosened the ICE ban by five years. So that that itself may also contribute to people delaying potentially their their purchase of vehicles.

And and spike in China, well, we've we've seen BYD now become the largest EV manufacturer so they are doing well in terms of their home market and we'll see later that part of their intention is to bring some of that those exports into the European and US markets as well.

So we wanted to kind of unpick this a bit more from the survey.

We also asked EV owners, so current EV owners, their experience of EVs and essentially we wanted to understand whether the experience of EVs would result in them continuing to buy EVs in the future.

Largely, it was quite positive. So between seventy to eighty five percent intend to buy an EV again.

But significantly, it's not one hundred percent. And looking into it, are some brands that do better than others. So Tesla, for example, seems to have a higher satisfaction than other EV owners.

So to really dig into this a bit further, this time around we wanted to frame the answer around people's attitudes and personas. So we defined three personas and we asked the survey respondents to identify themselves about which persona really represented their kind of approach to mobility. So we have the environmental techie who is much more concerned about protecting the environment and is also happy to adopt and try new technologies.

You have the mobility traditionalist who enjoys driving and is a bit more married to the to the kind of old technology, petrol, gas, diesel vehicles. And then you've got the third persona here who is someone who, although they, you know, they they they understand that and and have concerns for the environment, they are a bit more neutral. So they could be swayed either way on factors beyond the technology and environmental impact.

So looking at how the different countries and respondents in each country self identify, we see this distribution. So we see in the US and Australia, they have the highest, proportion of mobility traditionalists, so they are much more wedded to the current technology and petrol gas and diesel vehicles.

All the way to the right where we see China having the lowest and one of the highest environmental techie proportions.

Overall we can see that mobility traditionalists make up about a quarter and you have environmental techies making about a fifth, but there is a significant block of neutral people who can be swayed either way and that's quite a large proportion of the population.

So looking at what's at the top of their mind when you speak to each of these different personas, you'll see that the environmental techies are much more concerned about battery technology, quality of the vehicle, they're also thinking about the range, Whereas the mobility traditionalists are thinking about the upfront cost, they're thinking about they also think about battery quality and range, really the first thing is cost.

And then the neutral ones are are are thinking about similar things to the environmental techies. But, obviously, they have not necessarily been swayed enough either way to switch to EVs necessarily.

Just move to the next slide. So, in terms of people's barriers adoption, so we've asked this question a few times, a few years in a row, around the key aspects of EVs that are essentially preventing them to make the jump and and and buy an EV. And I think this is an interesting change compared to previous years. We we have seen this changing gradually over time, but but what we've seen this year is that in in in a few countries, so in the UK, in the US and Australia, cost is no longer cited as the biggest barrier.

So this is I think quite an interesting change. We've seen also this year prices come down for EVs. We've seen a bit of a price war to some extent.

And and and that seems to have translated into some of the in some countries where people are now thinking about how to live with an EV rather than necessarily whether they should be buying one or not.

And if you look at across the countries, we do see a similar trend. So what we've done here is we've taken all the different factors and concerns that people have about EVs across the different countries. We've looked at what's changed between twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three and looked at which which of those criteria have have have changed the most. So the ones in blue essentially are the ones that have come to the forefront of of of of people's minds this year versus last year. So range seems to have popped up again. But if you look at the other ones, lack of charging stations, concerns about battery life, concern about battery replacement, uncertain resale value, I think what we're seeing here is really a change in mindset within consumers that it's more about when I buy an EV, what are the issues rather than should I buy an EV at all.

So I think that is a strong message I think in terms of for the industry about what's needed to unlock this. It's not necessarily cost, mean cost will still factor, but there are other things that they're thinking about living with an EV that they need to educate them about, but also in some cases address specifically.

So if you look at the specific responses within those personas that we've identified, we see that for the environmental techies it's battery life, battery replacement cost and then charging stations.

For the mobility traditionalists it's about battery life again, the expense crops up quite high up as well M range. And then for the neutrals they've cited too expensive to buy or concerned about battery life as being the top issues when they when they think about purchasing.

Then then the other thing we we wanted to test is the the kind of willingness to pay a premium for a battery electric vehicle over a traditional ICE vehicle.

What we see here is a, in general, right across the board we see about fifty percent of people being willing to pay a premium for an EV. It's higher much higher in China, lowest in Germany, but overall there is a significant proportion of respondents that are willing to do that.

Now what's interesting is if you then look at the second row of numbers there, the seventy five percent row of numbers, that is the proportion of people who are willing to buy an EV if it's the same price or costs more. And we see that's closer to seventy five to eighty percent of the population would be prepared to buy an EV at that point. So I think that kind of points to as as the prices come down, we we we should see a significant proportion of people willing to buy an EV.

And then when you look at our specific personas on this same topic, we see that the scale of their willingness to pay is quite high for the environmental techies. So it's quite significant, about sixty five percent of them are willing to pay a premium.

And what you'd expect certainly with the mobility judicial is that that proportion is much smaller so forty five percent but still significant amount and if you recall the middle block here the neutral personas, they they make up sixty percent of the population and even they are quite willing, half of them are willing to pay a premium for an EV. So that that we think is quite significant.

So as costs come down, should see sixty percent, those neutral personas be influenced to buy an EV over time.

And just looking at our view of total cost of ownership, so we think about when we talk about EVs, think about the upfront costs, so how much it costs to buy the vehicle versus an ICE vehicle.

But also, we all know, the running costs are lower for an EV. So if you take the total cost of ownership, how does that look and how is that likely to develop over time? So we think that certainly in the US, we are reaching a point where the total cost of ownership will be in line with an ICE vehicle. Obviously that will depend on how many miles you do, but largely speaking that is getting to a point where the total cost of ownership is on par.

Now this does vary by country, the cost, the CapEx between an EV and an IC vehicle does vary and also electricity cost does vary. But but we we we will see this improve over time. We've we've seen I think there are two factors here. One is the cost of the battery is declining.

It the the inflation over the last couple years did slow that down. That's slowed down the reduction, but we do think that will continue. And I think the second factor here is that Chinese imports, if they are allowed without too much of a tariff impact, could also lower the average cost of an EV in European and US markets.

And then other point that we've tested here and is often cited as a barrier was range, I say was because it's fallen down the issue list over time. But that is clearly improving as well, and we asked people in survey what range would make them comfortable to buy an EV.

Range expectations do vary by country, so you know as you'd expect in the US and Australia, larger countries people typically travel longer distances more often, so expectations of range will be different. But today the median range offered fulfills at least a quarter of the needs in the US and Australia, so that's still quite a significant proportion. But in the UK it's more like forty four percent.

Now that's the median model available today. If you were to buy the best range model today, then then we're getting to more like seventy to eighty percent of needs. So I I think that's kind of getting to the point now where for a significant majority of people, the range will become less of an issue. And I think also as charging infrastructure improves, that will also improve people's kind of or should I say reduce their worry about range as well. So I think all of those are moving in positive directions.

Great. So that's, the last bit on EV adoption. And if there are any further questions, please please put them in the in in the chat. I'll hand over to Dave now.

Hey. Thanks, Vikram.

And a little delayed due to traffic, ironically. So talking about the future mobility. So, yeah, I'm gonna talk a little bit about what sort of projecting into the future. If you're familiar with the discipline of foresight, there's a set of tools that we can look at that will help us understand what the future might look like.

This is an initial pass to more or less get public sentiment about what their perceptions of the future might be. So there's obviously a lot going on as we move into the future from a steep standpoint, from a political standpoint. There is a fair amount of instability across the world at this moment, especially some tensions with China, for example. Of course, the goings on in Europe and the Middle East all kind of contribute to that uncertainty, more decarbonization regulation, global wealth and power, and just increasing polarization.

So a lot on the political side going on that can really, if we think about the world economy, could really go a lot of different directions, some positive, some negative. From an environmental standpoint, obviously, more extreme weather is affecting the world.

The unknown oil reserves and rare earth elements and where their mined, a lot of that interplay with political elements and and tariffs and so forth, economic influences such as growing inequality, some stagnation in China in particular, Populations are not growing across the developed world as they once were. Mostly are in decline and are flat or in decline in most of the developed world and and and Asia, many places in in decline. And then tech, all kinds of stuff going on, obviously, microchip production, battery technology.

The infrastructure is slowly improving across different countries at different paces, which, of course, all influence the adoption of EV and all kinds of new technologies having to do with mobility. So what we did is we went and we put together three different scenarios. And so sort of on brand for us, I was in charge of collapsed future. So that kind of imagines a world where a conflict develops and each of these countries are kind of pull into themselves and trade is stifled. As a result, EV proliferation is sort of thwarted, and we're having to support ourselves and our own economies, more or less.

People are forced to live in more local communities and travel less. So really sort of a class future. Hopefully, it doesn't look like that picture, but we presented that to consumers. The second one was continue on trend.

So again, that probably doesn't look quite as bright as this, but it's about EVs will continue to increase probably alongside of hybrids, kind of more of the same. And then a growth future is where things just explode and autonomous vehicles in a good way. Autonomous vehicles are available. We have EVs that are out there, and it's mostly EV transportation, mass transit's easy and cheap, and things just grow exponentially as it relates to new mobility.

So we presented those different scenarios to consumers across the globe, you know, not wanting them to be sort of soothsayers, but just kind of get the temperature, the pulse of how people feel about this. And you see, by and large, kind of surprising to us. I think most people are pretty optimistic. So about fifty percent of our respondents said, Hey, it's going be a growth future.

So that optimism is really, really resonates in China, where they're seeing a lot of this firsthand with the advent and development of really powerful battery technology, the takeover of EVs in China from traditional forms of transportation, ice engines and so forth. So they're really seeing that to be optimistic. Also, culturally on par, you have the US and Australia up there as well.

And, you know, just by and large, not a lot of variation.

Mostly, most people are by and large thinking growth, not stay the same, not sort of the collapse, but growth.

What we did is we wanted to kind of look at and understand, you know, what's sort of the net optimism that's out there.

So what we did is we looked at the percentage of people who said growth, and we subtracted that from the people who said it's collapsed. And once again, we see here that China, they have a front row seat to what's going on and what could be in terms of fast rail, in terms of EV penetration, and so very optimistic.

And so the net on those folks are much more optimistic than everyone else. Australia and the US trail, I think that culturally, they tend to be sort of optimistic cultures. I mean, everything's great in the United States even when it's not.

So there's a little bit of that coloring it, but more or less, they're seeing a lot of advances in different forms of mobility, EVs, hybrids, and so forth. So an optimistic view. And then in the middle, Germany, France, UK, Canada, which was sort of surprising me, and Spain. So it's not like if we go back to the previous slide, it's not like they are doom and gloom. They just have a bifurcated distribution in that, you know, there's a lot of people who are saying things are going be great, and a lot of people are saying, Maybe not so much. And that's why they're down more on the pessimistic sort of net there on the left.

We went through and we looked at some comments around different scenarios, and a lot of negative comments were around, okay, well, we don't see this happening. It's unproven. It might be inconvenient. You know, some people are sort of reacting to, oh, I don't want to get an EV or I don't want to be forced to take this form of transportation so that reactance to personal freedoms is in there. A lot of the positive statements were around technology, ironically convenience, good for the environment, accessible and safe. So when we looked at growth future, that had actually more negative comments associated with it than continue on trend.

And so it's just sort of that maybe healthy skepticism about what's going to move into the future, what's going to be possible. We all want a very, you know, a very positive future, but, you know, I think confronted with some significant headwinds. And so people are maintaining their optimism, but has a fair degree of skepticism out there too as well.

The last thing we took a look at was figuring out what are the subgroups of people who tend to buy into these different futures. Now we saw more people are into the growth future than the other two, but there was when we used the chain analysis to kind of tease out specific demographics, We a picture developed around CLAP's future being younger people in the US, Australia, and Canada, and and Spain as well clombed on there. So those folks were much to be a bit more, thinking, a bit more pessimistic about the future and that collapse, economic collapse and potential of conflict affecting the world of mobility.

Continue on trend. Our Gen Zs, especially in China, popped up. And then we've seen both growth and, continue on trend, two things that continue to ring through, which is if you've ever participated in rideshare or you own an EV or hybrid, those are kind of the gateway drugs into sort of getting on board with all things new mobility. And so if you have behaviorally demonstrated rideshare, if you own an EV or hybrid, you've kind of bought into that future to some degree.

So you have a stake in it and have a sort of a belief that's going to continue. We see another thing associated with the growth future is that people who travel. And so that's probably no big surprise for folks. But if you're exposed to different cultures, you see what's going on in the rest of the world, it tends to be eye opening.

Those people who do travel tend to have more of a growth future mentality.

So kind of wrapping up from the session, and then I think we'll open it up to questions. But we see that people are traveling much more often this year than last. We've been doing this eight years and quite a bump in the road last couple of years with COVID.

And now we're seeing we're getting a bit back to normal, but it's a bit of a new normal and that folks are not only, you know, we've seen the US at least a little decrease in actual use of vehicles to get around, but this kind of a rebound on other forms of mobility globally.

And so will that continue?

One thing that COVID did do to the world is get people out and about and walking and biking and so forth. So that has popped up. The barriers in EV adoption continue to be there. We see that, you know, the range anxiety tends to be starting to decrease a bit and other things start coming to the top of the list, such as concern about battery health and so forth.

Cost is no longer the number one barrier to EV adoption in the UK, US and Australia.

So that's the first time. As more available, cheaper, more affordable EVs come online, that's a good thing, especially coming from China, which I think is going to be a huge jar to the world as those EVs become more available.

We saw different sort of personalities out there. Mobility traditionalists, those are sticking around with ICE, are a bit concerned about jumping into this new world of EVs and hybrids. Environmental techies, you know, they come in different combinations, but those are folks who really like the technology afforded by EVs, but also have a concern around the environment as well in the neutral. They all have different attitudes, so they play a role as we move into the future. And then finally, as we saw and I covered, there is a general optimism about the future of mobility globally.

BVs, autonomous taxis, even electric vertical takeoff aircraft are all sort of on people's radar. What was once science fiction always seems to come true.

We never thought we'd be doing a global conference through a computer ten years ago, and here we are doing it. So some of these more fanciful things are slowly and sometimes rapidly coming to life. And then finally, our youth, our younger folks, twenty five to forty five, I guess maybe that's not young for everyone, is for me, but those folks in the West tend to be a little bit more pessimistic about the future. We saw that China tends to be very optimistic about it as well as North America.

And exposure to rideshare and EVs really kind of spur that optimism once they sort of experience new mobility. That tends to turn some attitudes around to be more positive than negative.

So with that, I think unless James or Beckham, you wanted to add anything, I think we open it up to questions at this point.

Yeah. Thanks, Dave. I'm just going to ask a couple of questions here just for Bikram and Dave to start to think about. So the first one we have here, is there a consumer interest in battery health certification for used EVs? What do you think, Bikram?

Yes. Well, I think it's an interesting question because there are services that have launched.

And as you've seen in the survey, battery life now is becoming a kind of a key factor in their decision. So I think it will be. The services are available, the technology is available.

I think what we need is a fleet, a larger fleet of secondhand EVs. Will build up over time.

Yeah, great. Dave, thoughts?

Yeah, I think for sure. I don't think there's a whole lot to worry about in terms of battery health degradation, but we see that as a key consumer concern, especially in the secondary market, and definitely have some kind of CARFAX certification on battery health. It's not really on people's radars quite yet, but I think it's definitely coming and something that would be a welcome addition to certification of used vehicles. And like I said, like CARFAX or some other kind of certification like that.

You know, interestingly enough, I was talking to a friend of mine who is CEO of a bike subscription, e bike subscription service here in Toronto. And one of the things he was saying was that battery life is becoming a very, very big issues with e bikes. And he said the difference between a bike with a good battery, an e bike with a good battery and one that's battery's about to die is huge. And the other reason we've seen quite a bit about from micro mobility battery fires, obviously far less on passenger cars and large vehicle side. But the small vehicle micro mobility side, yeah, we have seen those fires. So I think people are worried about that.

And James, I might just add to that as well, some observations from the commercial vehicle market. So we've done work with people who run e buses and they actually invest quite a lot of money into making sure they've got the right charges, software that charges it optimally. And I can imagine that for consumers and your home charger, may see value in that as well because it could maintain the second the residual value of your EV in the future if you've shown that you've looked after it.

Yep.

And the other thing is around, swappable batteries. So you've mentioned e bikes. One of the nice things about some e bikes have integrated batteries, some have swappable batteries. If you have an e bike with a swappable battery, problem solved.

Just get a new battery. Right? And so I know that's a bit more controversial in automotive. Neo and and are more than experimenting with that.

So that that's, you know, something that I think we should be keeping our eyes on as to how that develops, Swappable battery or not. Know James you have a a less charitable view of that into the future but it's it's worth keeping an open mind I think.

Well you know that that is a good question. You know at the the distinct parts between you know do we have battery swapping on an everyday basis versus a a a basis of of replacement and you know obviously that that definitely different things and you know we've we've seen sort of a bifurcation of strategies either way.

Another question I've got for Dave here. Why do you think millennials in the West are so pessimistic, especially compared to China? Is there some overarching viewpoint that you see from this?

Well, it's really interesting to see younger people a bit more pessimistic than China, especially what's going on with China right now, where they have a situation with the real estate bubble and their economy is not doing so hot and the threat of conflict around the world. But I think they're so into the tech there. I haven't been recently. My wife's on the way there, so maybe she'd tell me when she gets there.

But they're seeing it firsthand what it could be. And that BYD offering for eleven thousand dollars US, wow, that's pretty exciting, right? We're in the US, we see just a lot of conflict, I think, amongst political conflict and things are really not that bad in North America from an economic standpoint, but to watch the news, you would think things are horrible. So I think that sort of negativity or and then also with that generation, they're just realists, right?

They think they tend to be, with other generations, maybe Gen Xers not so much, but boomers, everything's great, everything's wonderful, even if it wasn't. And they tend to, I think, maybe just to be a little bit more honest and more pragmatic about the future and having to do more with less. Like we see them delaying everything, getting the license, getting married, getting a house, going to school. And it's because not because they want those delays is they can't afford them.

And so I think there's some of that economic pressure and debt and things like that that are also playing into that more, you know, conservative view of the future.

Another question, you know, going on from that, Vikram, do you see that repeated in Europe? Is negativity, do you think amongst millennials higher than it has been in the past? Is that something you've seen?

Well, I I I think there are there are a number of factors that have resulted in, I guess, millennials. I I I I I'm not sure I can make a distinction between gen gen zed and and millennials, but but certainly things like, economic wealth, there's there's a kind of perception that it's concentrated in the older age groups, especially around property. And that's made it difficult for younger generations to get on the property ladder and start families and and and from vehicles. And so I think, yeah, I I I think there's that that there's certainly a a kind of perception that I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily be better off than my parents in some cases.

Right. Here's one here. Any insight how the adoption of different ownership models have developed such as vehicle subscription, feature subscription, leasing and ownership. You know, Dave and I, we've had had some very very deep dives into this over the last five or six years and certainly, five years ago, this was a big topic. Where do you think it is today, Dave?

You know, it's something that should work, right? Like the sharing economy, it should work with cars. All the OEMs tried and failed, didn't work. I think there's some economies there of making it work.

We still have like Turo and some of the others out there that are, you know, still working, I think, and adopted. You know, admittedly, it was kind of a surprise. It didn't take off like it did. Now, what's very clear is subscription models.

People hate that. Absolutely hate subscription models. Will that change over time? I think it's going to take a while because people have this sort of the schema and mindset where I buy a car and I own the car, and I don't care if it's software or hardware, although they're a little more open to software subscriptions than hardware, like heated seats and so forth.

But you could also imagine a future where you might have ownership of a primary vehicle in your household and you have other schemes that would address, you know, ad hoc mobility needs. So you might have an around town car and for long trips, might rent something or or vacations or a truck or whatnot. So I I think there's still something in there. I don't think folks have really figured out how to how to do it well and make money in doing it. I I don't know if you feel the same way, Beckham and and James, but that's where I'm at on that topic.

I would agree, but love to hear from Beckham.

Yeah. I I think it it it's a strange one. I I I think I've I've put it down to somewhat, I think it's still a car is often seen as a status symbol. It's it's a personal statement.

You know, you you you spend time picking the color and the and the features in the vehicle. And so I I think for for certainly many generations that has been the idea of car. And what we have seen is a switch certainly to more leasing rather than ownership. But it's still your own personal vehicle.

Going that further step and actually sharing the vehicle in some way, whether it be under subscription or as a kind of a, you know, as a service thing is perhaps still a step too far for many people.

I still think that maybe future generations will have a different attitude to it, but certainly it's working with some aspects of mobility such as micro mobility. Whether it extend into vehicles, think we'll have to see.

Yeah. I think that micro mobility thing, you know, if if there's gonna be somewhere where it may work, it might be micro mobility. You know, going back to the person I mentioned earlier who's running the subscription e bike service here in Toronto, they're doing quite well. And they've managed to target some very key audiences that make it work. And that the biggest one being food delivery. So it certainly seems like it has a solid niche.

Whether it has an ability to go beyond that is a I'm less optimistic about at least.

I think some of it also more than some of it is also tied in with urban planning. And it tends to, of course, to work more in dense urban areas. They're more walkable. And so that's where the regulation urban planning comes into play and intersects with mobility.

They're obviously strong in relationship between those two. It won't work in places where you can't ride a bike or it's just scary to ride on the street.

Yeah, I think that's a very good point. And going back to that, it's downtown Toronto where it's focused, certainly not in the suburbs.

Moving on, what do you see as the reason for the negative EV sentiment that we see in the press today? You know, we we it was actually seeing sales are are pretty good. Like, you know, we're seeing thirty, forty, fifty percent year on year increases, but that's not the message that we're getting from the media. Any thoughts around this? Dave, let's start with you.

Yeah. You know, I I kinda think there's a bit of a a pushback on like Reactance. Like, this is new and it's scary. That there's that part of it.

Obviously, EVs, especially Tesla, Lucid, Rivian, it's a new retailing model as well. And so you go up against very powerful lobbying groups. We have seventy thousand dealerships in the United States, more than Walmart, Target, CVS combined. And so that's a lot of businesses that are quite wealthy who don't want to see that retailing model change.

So I think there's some of that going on. I think there's also just general fear about getting stuck somewhere in their EV.

And so that range anxiety, I think, come down a little bit. And so I think there's some and then I think the final thing, definitely in North America, maybe not as much in Europe or Asia, is unfortunately what you buy speaks to what your world views, your political beliefs are. And so I live in the state of Arkansas. If you own an EV here, you're making a very specific statement about what your beliefs are.

And that might be counter to what the prevailing cultural norms are. So I think that definitely comes into play. So Beckham, what do you think?

I think from a European perspective, there's a there's a few things going on.

I think one is, to some extent, in some countries, we've seen the governments take their foot off the gas in terms of legislation and trying to force it through.

There's and so I think that the pressure to necessarily buy an EV seems to have kind of softened slightly. I think also infrastructure is still a key issue. Think anecdotally in Europe there was, you know, people kind of telling stories about, you know, having to wait many hours to for a fast charger at a service station. And so there's an element, well, know, the infrastructure is not quite good enough yet. And then I think the cost, although, know, we've seen it come down. I still think it still plays on some people's minds.

But as we said in the survey and some of the research we showed is that that will come down. That will come down for two reasons. One is the batteries are are getting cheaper and higher performance as well as the imports from China bringing down the average price as well.

And and I I actually wanna move on from that, like extend on from that is is, know, when do you think we'll see these twenty thousand Euro, USD twenty thousand or, you know, maybe twenty five thousand dollars know, low cost EVs that, you know, in the past, we've seen people buy, here in North America, it might be a Civic or a Corolla. In Europe, it's perhaps, I guess, B segment vehicles.

When do you think we'll see these lower cost vehicles? And do you think they'll come from China? Or do you think for Europe, do you think they'll be European, US? Do you think they'll be from D3 or others? Any thoughts on this?

And how will that Well, I think certainly in Europe, you can start to buy them now.

So BYD Dolphins are available in the UK, you can test drive I think I'm not sure what the waiting time is and I'm not sure exactly how much they can supply at the moment. So they're here already and I think it will just be a matter of time you know when people experience them and try them out and look at the economics.

I feel it will happen pretty quickly, bar any geopolitical issues. And I think what will stop it or soften it is more geopolitical rather than consumer willing to try it and even buy them. Yeah.

I I couldn't agree more, Beckham. In the eighties and nineties when the Japanese came into the US market, people lost their minds. Now you have the Chinese, we don't have a very good relationship with currently. We have a protectionist administration, either one that happens in the upcoming year. They're both very similar in terms of protectionist policies.

BYD is planning allegedly to open a manufacturing plant in Mexico, which kinda that's gonna be kinda hard to like, kind of the US government to rationalize not allowing them to sell them to United States.

But I think with the eye on national security, I think they could play that card. So we there's a lot you know, in two thousand and eight when the economy collapsed, US government spent billions of dollars bailing out GM and Chrysler.

If they're willing to go to that extreme, they're probably willing to also not open up the market to the Chinese imports. It's just my guess. I do think that, you know, North America is a free market economy. If they are allowed in, look out. They're going to be really, really popular if their quality, holds up to scrutiny. So it it would be very interesting to watch over the next couple of years, because my understanding, like you said, Beckham, the the in in Europe, they're already kind of getting a significant toehold over there. So, we'll we'll see how it happens in North America.

Yeah, I drove a a BYD. I believe it was an Alto three last time I was in Europe back in November. And, you know, the car feels like it's on par with with anything else that we could buy from the Detroit three or the Japanese or whatever. You know, it it feels great, and I can see why people would like them.

So I mean, exactly right. There is a threat there. Now, we're just about to we're running up on time right now. Bikram, is there any closing words that you would like to finish up with?

I think I'll just kind of say that we have seen a softening in EVs this year, but I think from the survey, don't think it's structural. There are some reasons for why it softened this year specifically, But I feel still quite positive about EV adoption in the long run.

Dave, any thoughts before we go? And I know there's one more question come in, but we are going to have to skip that in the interest of time. But Dave, any any more thoughts?

I think it's just important as an industry, we think wider than just automotive. We look at all forms of mobility because there's, I think, a dynamic, an interplay between traditional automotive, micro mobility, and infrastructure, urban planning. And so those, I think we would be well It would be very wise for us to take a wider view and consider all those aspects rather than, I think, some of the domestics in particular have focused on just swapping out the gas engine for an EV, whereas there's a larger infrastructure and even larger beyond that in terms of a mobility, ecosystem to consider. So I think that would be my my my thoughts or recommendations moving forward.

Yeah, Dave. Agreed. It's it's It's one big world. Everything is interrelated. It's not just one thing.

And I think that's a very important theme to leave us with here. And as a wrap up, I'd just like to say thank you very much for Bikram and his team at LEK. I know they put in a ton of work to get this done. Really impressive.

So thank you very much to the LEK team. Again, thanks to Dave for your insights and amazing depth in consumer experience that really adds to the presentation that we put together. So thanks again. And we look forward to seeing everyone next year.

Thank you, everyone.

Thanks. Thanks, James.

Thanks.

Thank you.