Electric cars are shredding the brand loyalty automakers have spent decades building up — and it's great news for Kia and Hyundai

• A new study finds EVs are helping car brands attract new customers.
• Ford, Hyundai, and Kia have EVs bringing in the most new customers.

Electric vehicles are poised to disrupt customer loyalty in the car business, long one of the mainstays of vehicle brand identities.

According to a new study from car-shopping site Edmunds, electric vehicles are convincing buyers to change brands at much higher rates than historically seen in automotive retail. This particular sales metric, known as customer conquests, has historically been a difficult thing to achieve.

Carmakers have spent decades using wave after wave of focus groups, spending billions in marketing dollars, and internalizing customer feedback to drive loyalty among their buyer bases.

Keeping customers within the brand has always been a top priority for car companies and dealers alike, and not just for the obvious reason that no brand wants to see a buyer go to a competitor. It's also that it's far cheaper to keep a customer than to find a new one, according to Edmunds Executive Director of Insights Jessica Caldwell.

Car companies looking to conquest buyers to a brand can end up spending billions of dollars on new ad campaigns and R&D efforts to revamp their image, only to see meager or temporary shifts in loyalty.

"This is no easy feat in the auto industry and a part of the reason why leasing was invented — to drum up repeat business," Caldwell wrote in the study. "These EVs are drawing in new buyers naturally, which is a benefit that can't be underestimated."

The vehicles attracting the most customers from other brands, according to Edmunds:

• Ford's Mustang Mach-E, 69% conquest rate among trade-ins
• Hyundai's Ioniq 5, with 81% conquest rate among trade-ins
• Kia's EV6, with 79% conquest rate among trade-ins

Ford's early electric vehicle strategy hinged on leveraging the company's most valuable brands – with the most loyal customer bases – to strengthen its position in the EV market.

"I want us in segments and markets where we do really well without even trying that hard," Ford CEO Jim Farley told Insider earlier this year.

In remarks to journalists last week, GM CEO Mary Barra said 40% of GM's EV buyers are new to the company. GM is currently playing a long game with EV customers to drum up new loyalty with a call center for all electric vehicle drivers and shoppers.