41% Prefer an Electric Vehicle (But How Reliable are the Numbers?)

We love to chat hot new EV technologies here at PSD, but I’m always curious whether the market is actually receptive. Are consumers buying in?

Well, if a new poll by Ernst & Young Global Limited (EY), a UK special interest group, is anything to go by, the globe will be joining the electric club. Maybe.

EY surveyed 9,000 consumers in 13 countries (Australia, Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, the UK, and the US), and 41% said their next vehicle will be a plug-in electric model.

Of course, there’s a ton to unpack with a survey concerning people from very different cultures and national priorities. First, the obvious – price.

Electric vehicles normally command a higher upfront cost than their gas-powered cousins. While most studies conclude that EVs have a lower total cost-of-ownership, not everyone can make that initial investment. And 41% is a lot of people, presumably not all wealthy individuals.

A survey like this can also invite something called “Social Desirability Bias,” which, according to Nextiva, “results from participants answering sensitive questions with socially desirable, rather than truthful answers.”

For example, a poll on alcohol consumption might have respondents claim a smaller consumption rate – because excessive drinking isn’t socially acceptable.

The same phenomenon could be at work with the EVs, because electric vehicles are socially desirable. And when you factor in the ubiquitous “range anxiety” – and the fact that 70% of the EU’s charging stations are in just 3 countries – I can’t imagine that energy capacity doesn’t factor in.

If people are honest with themselves, there’s probably a healthy percentage of commuters for whom EVs don’t fit their lifestyle (at least until the infrastructure is in place).

And even then, EY’s number were very much an average – 51% of South Koreans, 53% in Singapore, and 63% in Italy preferred an EV for their next vehicle, while a mere 17% of Australians want an EV and 28% in both India and the U.S. 

What this tells me is that 41% of people in such radically different cultures aren’t representative of most anything.