Car buyers reject Biden's EV mandate, half of EV owners planning to switch back to gas-powered cars

President Joe Biden’s goal of getting most people into electric vehicles in the next decade is facing more opposition from car buyers faced with the realities of electricity demand. 

Nearly half of all electric vehicle owners in the U.S. will make their next car gasoline-powered, according to a new global survey from consulting firm McKinsey & Company. The survey also found that 3 out of 10 electric vehicle owners throughout the world will likely make their next vehicle purchase a gas-powered car. 

The primary reason for the EV owners’ dissatisfaction, according to the survey, is that public charging infrastructure is not adequate for their needs, and the total cost of ownership is too high. Only 9% consider current charging infrastructure to be adequate. 

It may be a long time before that problem is addressed. A separate survey of businesses that build electric vehicle charging stations finds that three out of four say that finding enough electricity for their stations is a major barrier to building them. 

The McKinsey and Company report surveyed 36,954 car owners in China, the U.S., Brazil, Japan, Korea and European countries — 15 countries worldwide in total. It found that 46% of EV owners in the U.S. will be looking to go back to gas-powered vehicles on their next purchase. This was second only to the U.K., where 49% of EV owners plan to go back to internal combustion engines. 

Other reasons for EV owners’ dissatisfaction, besides the inadequacy of charging options, include the impact on long-distance road trips, the inability to charge at home, and the stress of worrying about charging.

The survey found that 38% of the respondents who don’t have an EV would consider buying an EV or a plug-in hybrid, which has a gas-powered engine and a motor that can run off a chargeable battery, yet 21% won’t consider an EV at all. 

An Associated Press-NORC poll earlier this month found that 46% of Americans are not too likely or not at all likely to purchase an electric vehicle. The results are in line with the same poll last year, which found that 47% of Americans said they weren’t likely to buy an EV. Of those responding to this year’s poll, 21% said they were “very” or “extremely” likely to buy and EV for their next car, and 21% said they were somewhat likely.

This year’s poll found that only 9% of U.S. adults say they or someone in their household owns or leases an electric vehicle. This is up slightly from last year, when 8% of respondents said they or someone in their household owned an electric vehicle. 

Biden had predicted that dropping $7.5 billion to build new charging stations would make his EV mandate more palatable for the American public, but so far only a handful have been built. 

Xendee, a California-based software company, surveyed 211 charging station developers, and 75% of them said that electric grid limitations are among the biggest roadblock to building EV charging infrastructure. The total cost of the infrastructure was a problem for 63% of the respondents, and permitting delays were cited by 53% of those surveyed. 

Supply chain issues, financing, fleet-adequate solutions, engineering costs, and inadequate software were the other problems cited in the survey. 

Utility Dive reports that some developers were unable to get information from utilities in a timely fashion, and some regions have seen major price spikes increase energy costs above economic levels. 

Many of Xendee’s clients, according to Utility Dive, have resorted to installing gas- or diesel- powered generators to run their charging stations.