Drivers are becoming more reluctant to switch to electric vehicles from combustion engines and the trend is more pronounced in Europe than in the United Statesa survey published by Shell on Tuesday showed.
The main obstacle is cost, according to the survey of 15,000 drivers across the world, including Britain, China, Germany and the United States.
“Europe surprised us,” said David Bunch, Shell’s chief for mobility and convenience. “The single biggest barrier to entry is the cost of the vehicle. Range anxiety is still there but it’s diminishing.”
Electric vehicles are on average up to 30 per cent more expensive than internal combustion engine cars.
This year, 41 per cent of respondents in Europe said they would consider switching to an electric car compared with 48 per cent last year, while in the United States the number fell three percentage points to 31 per cent, the survey showed.
In terms of the pace at which the charging experience is improving, only about half of European drivers said public charging had improved in the last year, below China’s 74 per cent and 80 per cent in the United States.
Only 17 per cent of European drivers asked said public charging offered value for money, compared with 69 per cent in China and 71 per cent in the United States.
Shell runs 75,000 charging points and focuses its EV strategy on fast, on-the-go charging points rather than home-charging. Its core EV markets are China, Britain, Germany, SwitzerlandSingapore, the Netherlands and the United States.
