Through my work at TRL I have been researching electric vehicle adoption for over half a decade. Notable projects like CVEI (Consumers, Vehicles and Energy Integration), Electric Nation, an exploration of the acceptability of smart charging for Citizens Advice, and a Feasibility study for the DfT and OZEV on using behavioural insights to accelerate adoption, have all contributed to the growing evidence base on why some people and businesses have switched to electric vehicles, and why some haven’t.
The size of the former group is continuing to grow in the UK – latest figures from the DfT show that at the end of March 2022 there were a bit over 840,000 plug-in vehicles, consisting of about 58% battery electrics and 40% plug-in hybrids, plus a small number of range extenders.
That’s a 70% increase in EVs compared with 12 months earlier and an almost three-fold increase from 2020 figures. Some impressive growth – yet this still remains a rather small drop in the ocean when considering the entire 40 million strong vehicle parc; as it stands, just 2% of the UK fleet is electric. We must not, of course, kid ourselves into thinking that a straight like-for-like swap of combustion engine vehicles to electric-powered vehicles represents success. Indeed, we don’t actually want to end up with 40 million (or more) electric vehicles on the roads in future; we need many fewer vehicles in total, used for many fewer miles, with the vast majority of journeys catered for by a network of active, shared and zero emission mobility options. Whilst EVs are certainly not a panacea, they are an important part of the mix of solutions, and it is clear there is still more work to be done if we are going to decarbonise transport.
Findings from TRL’s research into electric vehicle adoption and use, along with much of the other published literature on this topic, can largely be boiled down to reveal three core barriers to adoption of electric vehicles:
1. Range – ‘You can’t drive very far in an electric car’
2. Purchase price – ‘Electric cars are too expensive’
3. Charging infrastructure – ‘There is nowhere to charge an electric car’
Despite my failed efforts to enable at-home (or at least near-home) charging, I decided to bite the bullet, overcome my ‘charging anxiety’, and become an EV owner (or leaser, more accurately).
Open the PDF here to read in full about my experience of owning an EV and the challenges of using it.
Surely we can do better than this?
