Oct. 8, 2021—A new research review in Nature Energy journal revealed the electric vehicle “revolution” will be slow and rocky.
The research looked specifically at why electric vehicle adopters decided to switch back to a conventional ICE vehicle.
The study found that in a survey of a few thousand California residents who were early adopters of either battery-powered electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids, about 20 percent switched back to gas vehicles.
“About one-fifth of people who adopted electric vehicles ditched them. That seems like a lot to me,” said Bradley Lane, research author and associate professor of public affairs & administration at the University of Kansas, “especially given that these were the people most likely and most incentivized to adopt them. Of course, you could also argue that 80 of people kept their EV or got a new one. But interestingly, the same things that predicted if people adopted them, if they were dissatisfied with those things, they abandoned their EV.”
Owners who abandoned their battery-powered EVs reported they were most likely dissatisfied with home charging capability and public access to charging stations.
Lane later added he believes the transition will be “rocky.”
