Market insight Carwow’s third-quarter consumer behaviour analysis reveals a strong upward trend in interest for battery electric vehicles (BEVs), with configurations increasing by 30% year-on-year to nearly 271,000. The platform also reported a rise in plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) configurations, which grew by 15% to over 250,000. In contrast, petrol and diesel vehicle configurations dropped by 8% and 11%, totalling 536,000 and 75,000, respectively. The period saw a surge in both new and used car inquiries generated by consumers on Carwow, with total leads to retail partners climbing 29% year-on-year. New car inquiries increased by 27%, partly driven by Carwow’s September plate-change campaign, while used car inquiries grew by 34%. The most popular new BEVs configured on Carwow in Q3 were led by the Tesla Model Y, followed by the MG 4 and Tesla Model 3. Rounding out the top five were the Volvo EX30 and Polestar 2. Consumer preferences on Carwow showed shifts in financing choices, with personal contract purchase (PCP) and leasing rising as the most selected payment methods. PCP configurations rose 5% year-on-year, reaching over 328,000, while leasing saw an 18% increase to more than 206,000. Configurations of automatic vehicles also rose sharply by 12% year-on-year, with nearly one million automatic configurations made in Q3, while manual transmissions saw a 24% decline to just under 200,000. Colour preferences showed some interesting changes: configurations for brown and orange vehicles rose by 17% and 16%, respectively, while green increased by 12%. Despite this, grey and black remained the most popular choices, each seeing almost 105,000 configurations. The preferred price range for new-car configurations was £30,000 to £40,000, reaching nearly 400,000 configurations, a 10% increase compared to last year. Philipp Sayler von Amende, chief commercial officer at Carwow, commenting on the market trends, said: “The return of new car supply combined with a challenging macroeconomic backdrop has led to increased advertising spend from brands to help drive retail demand, particularly for EVs. “It's encouraging to see increases in configurations and enquiries for both new and used cars on our platform, especially the huge surge in interest for some BEVs.”