Pesquisa de mercado de veículos elétricos

---

Electric Vehicle Market Research: How Leading OEMs Capture the Powertrain Transition

The electric vehicle market rewards manufacturers who read demand signals earlier and price battery economics more accurately than peers. That advantage is built through disciplined research, not intuition.

Powertrain transition modeling now sits at the center of capital allocation decisions across global OEMs. Battery chemistry benchmarking, dealer network optimization, and connected vehicle data monetization have become board-level questions. The firms pulling ahead treat pesquisa de mercado de veículos elétricos as a continuous intelligence function rather than a project commissioned before each launch.

The Strategic Value of Electric Vehicle Market Research

Conventional automotive research weighted nameplate loyalty, horsepower, and dealer relationships. Those variables explain less of the EV purchase decision. Charging access, software experience, residual value forecasts, and battery warranty terms now drive consideration sets in ways legacy segmentation tools miss.

Tesla, BYD, and Hyundai built early share by reading these new variables correctly. Rivian targeted the adventure segment through vehicle architecture decisions made years before launch. Each used primary research to validate assumptions competitors treated as obvious. The OEMs catching up are rebuilding their consumer insight stack around installed base analytics, total cost of ownership models that reflect time-of-use electricity tariffs, and ADAS adoption curves segmented by geography.

According to SIS International Research, EV powertrain decision-makers at global automakers consistently underestimate the speed at which battery cost curves reset competitive positioning, with development cycles compressing well below the timelines used in traditional ICE program planning. The implication is structural. Research cadences built for seven-year platforms break down when chemistry, software, and supplier economics shift inside a single program window.

What Battery Chemistry Benchmarking Reveals About Margin

The shift from NMC to LFP, and the early commercial signals around sodium-ion and solid-state, has redrawn cost structures across the industry. CATL, LG Energy Solution, and Panasonic operate distinct chemistry roadmaps, and each implies different vehicle architectures, thermal management requirements, and warranty exposure.

Procurement teams treating battery sourcing as a commodity decision miss the second-order effects. LFP cells reduce cost per kWh but add weight, which alters range claims, tire wear, and suspension specifications. Solid-state timelines influence platform decisions years before any cell ships. Battery chemistry benchmarking translates these tradeoffs into bill of materials optimization scenarios leadership can price.

Ford, GM, and Stellantis have publicly restructured battery supply agreements after recalibrating these assumptions. The pattern is not failure. It is the normal cadence of an industry where supplier qualification audits, joint venture economics, and IRA-driven sourcing requirements move faster than annual planning cycles accommodate.

How OEMs Use Primary Research to De-Risk Launches

Focus groups with EV and hybrid owners surface decision drivers that survey instruments alone cannot detect. Owners describe the moment they crossed from consideration to purchase, the role of total cost of ownership calculators, and the specific anxieties charging infrastructure resolved or amplified. Those narratives shape advertising, dealer training, and product roadmap priorities.

SIS International’s qualitative work with EV owners across Germany, France, and North America has identified consistent gaps between what OEM marketing assumes drives consideration and what owners describe as the actual trigger, particularly around home charging logistics, software update cadence, and resale value confidence. These gaps are recoverable through structured research. They are expensive when discovered after launch.

Compensated focus groups, B2B expert interviews with fleet managers, and ethnographic research inside owner households produce the texture quantitative work cannot. A Fortune 500 supplier of automotive audio systems used SIS recruitment of BEV owners in Düsseldorf to test sound concepts specific to electric drivetrains, where the absence of engine noise reshapes the entire interior acoustic environment. That kind of category-specific recruitment separates useful research from generic consumer panels.

The Four Lenses of EV Market Intelligence

Effective electric vehicle market research operates across four lenses simultaneously. Each answers a distinct leadership question, and none substitutes for another.

Source: SIS International Research

Programs that fund only one or two lenses produce confident answers to incomplete questions. The OEMs gaining share fund all four and integrate findings into a single decision view.

Connected Vehicle Data and Aftermarket Revenue Strategy

The vehicle has become a data platform. Connected vehicle data monetization, over-the-air feature unlocks, and subscription-based ADAS features now contribute meaningful margin streams that did not exist a decade ago. BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Tesla have tested different monetization models, with mixed consumer reception.

Research here requires more than willingness-to-pay surveys. It requires understanding which features owners perceive as core to the purchase versus optional add-ons, and how that perception differs between fleet buyers and retail consumers. Aftermarket revenue strategy depends on getting that segmentation right before pricing is set.

Based on SIS International’s analysis of automotive engagements across Europe, North America, and Asia, fleet electrification TCO models consistently outperform retail consumer ROI calculations as predictors of B2B purchase timing, yet most OEM research budgets remain weighted toward retail consumer studies. Rebalancing that allocation is one of the higher-leverage moves available to commercial leadership.

Regional Competitiveness and the China Question

China produces and consumes more EVs than any other market, and BYD, NIO, XPeng, and Li Auto have built capabilities that European and North American OEMs are still mapping. Tariffs, joint venture restrictions, and the IRA have fragmented what was briefly a global market into regional ones with distinct rules.

Market entry assessments now require country-level depth. Battery sourcing eligible for U.S. tax credits looks different from sourcing optimized for European battery passport requirements. Reshoring feasibility studies and supplier qualification audits have moved from procurement to strategy, because where a battery is made now determines where the vehicle can be sold profitably.

Building an Intelligence Function That Compounds

The OEMs and suppliers winning the powertrain transition treat electric vehicle market research as infrastructure. They commission focus groups, B2B expert interviews, competitive intelligence, and VOC programs on a continuous calendar rather than episodically. They build internal repositories that compound across programs. They name the methodology and hold it to a standard.

Electric vehicle market research is most valuable when leadership uses it to make decisions earlier than competitors, with more specific evidence, on questions that matter to capital allocation. The discipline is unglamorous. The advantage is durable.

Sobre SIS Internacional

SIS Internacional oferece pesquisa quantitativa, qualitativa e estratégica. Fornecemos dados, ferramentas, estratégias, relatórios e insights para a tomada de decisões. Também realizamos entrevistas, pesquisas, grupos focais e outros métodos e abordagens de Pesquisa de Mercado. Entre em contato conosco para o seu próximo projeto de pesquisa de mercado.