SHOCK NEWS: 81% of drivers think electric cars are too expensive

A new survey by the AA reveals that 81 per cent of drivers think electric cars are too expensive, and 63 per cent have no clue about the plug-in car grant.

We’re driving headlong in to a future of electric cars (rightly or wrongly – it’s happening) and in less than nine years you’re not going to be able to buy a new car that doesn’t come with a plug.

But despite every car maker doing what they can to get you in to an EV they still only account for a tiny proportion of new car sales, and there are many good reasons for that – a lot of them illustrated in a new survey by the AA.

The biggest obstacle to the EV experience is upfront cost – cited by 81 per cent of the AA survey’s 15,500 participants – and it’s easy to see why; take the very good Hyundai Kona Electric as an example, where the entry-level ICE Kona costs around £18k and the cheapest electric Kona (after the recent reduction in Kona Electric prices and the PiCG) costs £10k more. 

It seems that 63 per cent of those surveyed had never heard of the Plug-in Car Grant (PiCG) which, as car makers tend to quote prices including the PiCG, is probably not surprising, and 50 per cent didn’t know there’s government funding to help pay for home charging.

Other negatives include 77 per cent not believing an EV will travel as far on a single charge as an ICE car on a full tank, 59 per cent think charging takes too long and 56 per cent think the charging infrastructure is too flaky. 

Clearly there’s a long way to go before buyers are convinced EVs are for them, despite a third saying an EV could suit their lifestyle, and we’re probably going to have to wait for solid state batteries to arrive, and the charging infrastructure to improve to the point where every petrol station has a bank of 350kW chargers, before buying an EV makes sense for ‘normal’ car buyers.

Despite that, the AA is joining with electrifying.com to dispel these EV ‘myths’. AA president, Edmund King, said:

After more than a century of the combustion engine leading the charge it is not surprising that some drivers are only just catching up with all things electric. We are here to help petrol heads become electric heads. We are delighted to join with Electrifying.com and the government to bust some of these myths.