Electric vehicles dominated the Super Bowl

The San Francisco 49ers may have lost the Super Bowl, but electric vehicles pulled through with a “W.” 

Between a surprise Jeep electric bicycle and a first look at the upcoming electric Hummer, EVs had a strong showing in Super Bowl commercials. 

Of the seven ads from car companies that played during the game, four featured electric vehicles. 

Porsche showed off Taycan EVs racing through a German town. Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams let go in an Audi E-tron Sportback. Bill Murray showed off a Jeep e-bike. And LeBron James dunked in a spot featuring the first glimpse of the upcoming Hummer EV. 

“It’s an interesting time for EV’s as there are more battery-electric models on sale and coming than we’ve seen in the modern era – with many of the upcoming models SUVs and pickup trucks, ” Brooke Skinner Ricketts, chief experience officer at Cars.com, wrote in an email. “It only makes sense that we saw more EV ads air during the Super Bowl than ever before last night. With that said, mainstream use of EVs will continue to lag due to affordability concerns, low gas prices and lack of public infrastructure, among other reasons.”

Cars.com went on to analyze the influence of the car ads. While the Hummer EV won’t be available until late 2021, the ad inspired 479 percent more views on Cars.com’s used Hummer pages — even though the Hummer was discontinued in 2010. It also resulted in a 26 percent increase in visits to GMC pages on Cars.com.

EV pioneer Tesla has an upcoming SUV, the Model Y, but didn’t advertise during the Super Bowl. As CEO Elon Musk had made clear several times, including during last week’s earnings call, Tesla doesn’t do ads.  

Even car ads without EVs featured advanced driver technology, like the John Legend and Chrissy Teigen Genesis SUV ad and Hyundai’s “Smart Parking” ads with Chris Evans and John Krasinski sporting heavy Boston accents.