Four in ten Americans have unfavourable views of electric vehicles thanks to ten key reasons

About 61 percent of Americans have varying degrees of unfavorable opinions about electric vehicles, supporting the recent decline in demand for them.

Nearly all major electric vehicle makers, including Tesla and Chinese rival BYD, saw their sales fall in the first quarter of 2024.

This has been a long-term trend, with demand for these cars falling sharply in 2023 after a surge of interest in 2022.

Given this shift in the American consumer, the Wall Street Journal teamed up with Morning Consult to survey 864 American adults about why they have unfavorable views of electric cars.

Respondents gave ten reasons why electric cars are just not for them – with the top three being ‘cost’, ‘not enough charging stations available’ and electric cars not being as reliable as gas-powered vehicles.

Tesla sales fell 20 percent in the first quarter of 2024 compared to deliveries in the last quarter of 2023

A recent study by iSeeCars found that electric cars cost 63.6 percent more for every 1,000 kilometers driven per year compared to gasoline cars. This is because electric cars are ultimately driven less than petrol cars.

Consumers can still expect to pay more upfront for electric vehicles as well.

The average price paid for a new electric car in February was just over $52,000which is about $5,000 more than what you’d expect to pay for a new gas car.

However, the sticker price isn’t the only thing you need to consider because unless you’re leasing your car, the whole point of buying it is to make it last as long as possible without any major problems.

Because electric vehicle technology is a lot newer than the systems that have been in gasoline cars for decades, drivers report having many more problems with electric cars.

Among the most commonly reported problems were problems with the battery and charging system, as well as defects in the way the vehicles’ body panels and interior parts fit together.

As a result, 57 percent of respondents in the Wall Street Journal survey cited their belief that electric vehicles do not perform as well as gasoline-powered cars as a major reason for their negative views of electric vehicles.

The Kia EV6 GT will be shown at the 2024 New York International Auto Show. The base model’s MSRP is over $61,000, while the Kia Selto, another gas-powered SUV, has a starting MSRP of about $24,500.

Automakers not only face problems with reliability issues and prohibitively high upfront costs, but now also have to deal with customers’ ideological beliefs when it comes to electric vehicles.

A significant share (20 percent) say electric cars conflict with their political views, the Journal poll found.

As the White House pushes the country toward a future in which two-thirds of new cars sold will have to be electric cars or plug-in hybrids, conservatives have spoken out firmly against such mandates.

Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist, told the Journal he was frustrated by his party’s consistently negative view of electric vehicles.

Murphy is from Detroit, known for decades as the center of auto manufacturing, and he founded a nonprofit to narrow the political divide on electric vehicles and consult with automakers on ways to appeal to ideologically driven Americans speak.

Steven Center, head of Kia’s US operations, is behind the Kia EV9. He recently told the Wall Street Journal that he is aware that Americans view electric vehicles through a political lens

“There is a heart-and-mind opposition to EVs, especially on the Republican side,” Murphy said. “If you can’t break that tribalism, the industry won’t sell enough electric cars” to meet the Biden rules.

However, it’s not as complicated as Republicans just hating electric vehicles.

Tesla remains the world’s leading EV company despite recent setbacks and layoffs, and its CEO, Elon Musk, has taken a much more right-wing stance on current political issues.

Steven Center, the head of Kia’s U.S. operations, said he is aware of how electric vehicles have become a political issue for many Americans.

“You know that old saying, ‘Don’t talk about religion or politics?’ I think you can add EVs to that,” he told the Journal.