Access to Charging a Key Hurdle for EVs

By Staff Writer July 31, 2024

Consumers’ top concerns about electric vehicles are evolving, with access to charging infrastructure becoming increasingly important, while worries about price and range have flatlined.

That’s according to Autolist’s 2024 Electric Vehicle Survey, an annual study that this year polled more than 2,700 current car shoppers between March and July 2024.

The poll by Autolist, a CarGurus company, also found that while EV sales surged in the first half of 2024, shoppers in this survey were more skeptical of EVs than in previous years. Consumers were more pessimistic about things like EVs’ environmental impact, the use of incentives to boost their sales, and the likelihood that they might own one in the future.

Gen Z impressions of EVs were also varied in this survey. While these younger respondents were more enthusiastic that they’d own an EV in the future than other age groups, they were also less supportive of taxpayer-funded incentives for EVs, and more skeptical of their environmental impact.

The most striking finding in this year’s survey was how shoppers’ top worries about EVs has evolved.

‘Price’ and ‘range’ have long ranked as the top two concerns about EVs, dating back to the first iteration of Autolist’s EV survey in 2019.

That was true again in 2024: when asked to name their top three issues with buying an EV, ‘price’ and ‘range’ each garnered 40% of the vote.

What’s noteworthy is that they’re down from earlier years – mostly.

In 2023, 42% of respondents chose ‘price’ as a top concern; in 2022 it was 49%.

Meanwhile, 38% of respondents chose ‘range’ as a top concern in 2023; in 2022 it was 44%.

While ‘price’ and ‘range’ are less of a worry, concerns about charging infrastructure are becoming a bigger issue.

This year, 38% of respondents said a top three concern about EVs was where to charge one.

That’s up from 33% in 2023 and 35% in 2022.

This means that worries about where to charge an EV – once a distant third-place concern to their price and range – is now almost as big an issue.

This tells us that any technology is only as good as its weakest link. And while EVs continue to mature (offering lower prices and greater range), consumers are increasingly feeling like it’s the infrastructure that’s becoming the weak link in the equation.

The declining worries about price and range make sense.

The average list price of a new EV in June was down 2.4%, year-over-year, to $62,450 (this excludes direct-to-consumer brands like Tesla and Rivian) according to CarGurus data. The average list price of used EVs in June has dropped 13.8% year-over-year, to $37,688 (which includes all makes and models on the market).

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Last modified on Monday, 05 August 2024 21:26