Despite electric vehicle tax credits and significant efforts to expand public charging, the share of new-vehicle shoppers who will avoid EVs has grown over the past three months, according to J.D. Power.
In March, 21 percent of new-vehicle shoppers surveyed said they are very unlikely to consider an EV, up from 19 percent in February and 18 percent in January. The percentage of shoppers who said they are very likely to consider an EV has remained relatively flat over the past three months, landing at 27 percent in March. About 34 percent of shoppers said they are somewhat likely to consider an EV, and 18 percent said they are somewhat unlikely.
Resistance to an EV reflects concerns about lack of public charging infrastructure and high prices, J.D. Power said in its March E-Vision Intelligence Report, based on responses from about 2,000 new-vehicle shoppers.
To a lesser extent, EV reluctance could be driven by macroeconomic headwinds, such as rising interest rates, recession fears and stable gasoline prices, said Stewart Stropp, J.D. Power’s executive director of EV intelligence.
EVs made up 7.3 percent of U.S. market share in March, according to the firm, down from 8.5 percent in February but up from 5.5 percent in March 2022, J.D. Power said.
Recent announcements to expand the public charging network by Walmart, Tesla and others haven’t swayed resisters, J.D. Power found.
That’s largely because consumers haven’t seen those chargers yet, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions.
“The promise of future growth does not help to instill your confidence today,” he said.
Poor charger reliability also creates EV reluctance. J.D. Power found that 1 in 5 public charging attempts failed last year.
“Hopefully we’ll start to see the tide turn on that as we do get more infrastructure build-out going with things like bipartisan infrastructure law support,” Stropp said. “But right now [infrastructure] is a key worry bead.”
Shoppers who own an EV — 3 percent of J.D. Power’s respondents — are very likely to purchase an EV again, Stropp said. Over the past six months, 71 percent of current EV owners said they were very likely to purchase another.
