Counteracting electric vehicle range concern with a scalable behavioural intervention

All-electric vehicles remain far from reaching the market share required to meaningfully reduce transportation-related CO2 emissions. While financial and technological adoption barriers are increasingly being removed, psychological barriers remain insufficiently addressed. Here we show that car owners systematically underestimate the compatibility of available battery ranges with their annual mobility needs and that this underestimation is associated with increased demand for long battery ranges and reduced willingness to adopt electric vehicles. We tested a simple intervention to counteract this bias: providing tailored compatibility information reduced range concern and increased willingness to pay for electric vehicles with battery ranges between 60 and 240 miles, relative to a 50-mile-range baseline model. Compatibility information more strongly increased willingness to pay than did information about easy access to charging infrastructure, and it selectively increased willingness to pay for car owners who would derive greater financial benefits from adopting an electric vehicle. This scalable intervention may complement classical policy approaches to promote the electrification of mobility. Understanding barriers to adoption of electric vehicles remains critical for scaling up their rapid deployment. Herberz et al. show how the compatibility of electric vehicle range with driver usage is systematically underestimated and demonstrate that tailored compatibility information can reduce range concern.