Why do people buy EVs?

I hope I’ve been able to demonstrate how EVs are clearly better for the environment and lead to a lower carbon footprint for individuals than ICE vehicles. Therefore, it is important to understand the reasons for people to take the environmentally-positive action of purchasing an EV.

Let’s return to the poll I created a while ago. At the time of writing this post it has received exactly 100 responses and by clicking ‘see results’ we can see that ‘Environmental Reasons’ and ‘The Driving Experience’ are significantly more important for the respondents than financial factors at 38% and 40% respectively. 

survey software

Whilst I did expect that the driving experience would rank highly, I thought that cost would be equally important. This would complement the study by Lane and Potter that identifies these two factors as outranking environmental reasons, as discussed in a prior post. However, I realise that different groups of people will have different motivation.

Given that I shared the poll with members of EV forums (thank you for voting!), it is likely that those who are engaged with their electric vehicles to the point that they are present on electric vehicle forums are likely to be genuinely interested in environmental issues and the driving experience of their vehicles.

Nearly a decade ago, Lane and Potter mentioned that common characteristics of EV adopters include: ‘high educational levels and incomes, are urban dwellers, and are interested in technology’. It seems that this still stands true today. 

From my interactions and personal engagement with EV owners on the various forums that I have visited whilst researching for my blog, they take pride in being early adopters of green technology and are interested in much of the technology and science behind their vehicles and in many cases have opted for more expensive EVs rather than simply focussing on saving as much money as possible.

In order to obtain a different perspective, I visited a local automotive garage that specialises in hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius. From speaking to owners and employees, it became clear that many of the customers were private taxi drivers and companies who purchased the vehicles solely for their reduced costs per-mile compared to ICE vehicles and exemption from the London congestion charge.

When I learnt about the value-action gap in adopting ‘green products’ in my second year of university, I was also introduced to the concept of ‘inadvertent environmentalism’ These people who are incentivised by reduced expenditure can be seen as what Russel Hitchings et al. refer to as ‘Inadvertent Environmentalists’. 

For these individuals, it seems that although they are likely to in principle support taking environmentally friendly actions, these environmental values are not enough to instigate the relevant action, in this case, buying an electric car, so a ‘value-action gap’ is created. 

However, Hitchings et al. point out that what is first identified as a value-action gap may also reveal what they describe as an ‘action-value opportunity’. 

In essence, instead of fighting to increase environmental consciousness and reduce the gap, we can instead acknowledge the positive action being taken, and reward it (for example, through providing congestion charge exemptions) and in doing so begin to instil new environmental values. 

Hitchings et al. describe this approach to mitigating the value-action gap as simply a chance to ‘celebrate hitherto unacknowledged environmentalism’! 

So next time you get into your uber-summoned Prius, give the driver a pat on the back for being an [inadvertent] environmentalist!