JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – With drivers experiencing the dramatic increase in prices at gas pumps, a Jacksonville dealership is seeing an increased demand for electric and hybrid vehicles.
Robert Cook is the general sales manager at Jenkins Hyundai of Jacksonville. He said the demand for electric and hybrid vehicles is so high that it’s hard to keep those vehicles on the lot.
“With the gas prices now more than $4 a gallon for regular and premium close to $5, we’ve had a 60 to 70% increase in EV cars and hybrids,” Cook said.
As of Wednesday, there were no new or used hybrid vehicles on the lot. And the recently released all-electric Hyundai Ionic 5 didn’t last long on the lot.
“We had seven of them drop last week, and they’re all gone,” Cook said.
Notably, dealerships across the nation have been dealing with issues when it comes to meeting consumer demand due to the semiconductor shortage.
At the Hyundai dealership Wednesday, there appeared to be more used than new vehicles on the lot. A new shipment had also just arrived, but none of those vehicles were hybrid or electric.
Cook says people are calling the front desk and asking what’s available and how long it will be before new inventory of EVs and hybrids arrive. It’s now at the point where potential buyers are being asked to pre-order the vehicles so when a shipment of new inventory arrives at the lot, the pre-ordered vehicle is already marked as sold.
Cook says his sales team also calls other Hyundai dealerships within a 500-mile radius to see if they have any extra EVs or hybrids they could be delivered to the lot for customers who don’t want to pre-order.
In the end, Cook says, people either want better gas mileage if they’re paying as much as they are at the pump, or they want to avoid the pump altogether.