Sunday’s captive Super Bowl audience did turn the night’s few vehicle ads, including for all-electric offerings, into a burst of online searches for a new set of wheels, according to at least one shopping and research site, Cars.com. With 75% of the big game’s car ads — only four in all this year — featuring an EV, Cars.com logged a 21% increase in EV page views across its site and apps. Cars.com analyzed site-traffic patterns for advertised car model pages during the eight minutes before each spot aired and again eight minutes after.
Now, whether those searches turn into purchases is much less clear, particularly as automobile manufacturers and consumers struggle with limited EV supply to deliver on what the ads tease during the big game and in extended online campaigns. Fans of the sold-out all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning, which did not advertise for the Super Bowl this year, sat on waiting lists for at least a year before some deliveries were made beginning last year. Read: Super Bowl ads aren’t just expensive, they’ve got a costly carbon footprint — here’s just how much Because car buying is a big-ticket and emotional purchase, manufacturers have a tough sell at t …