- The amount of Americans who are interested in going electric is holding surprisingly strong.
- Over a quarter of car shoppers say they are “very likely” to consider an EV, a number that’s increased as gas prices have risen in the U.S.
- The most stubborn EV holdouts need tons of chargers and at least 500 miles of range.
A funny thing is happening in the electric vehicle world right now. Tax credits are gone. Car companies are backtracking. New electric car sales are way, way down. Yet the number of American car shoppers who are interested in going electric is holding strong.
“I’m honestly a bit surprised where consideration is at following the discontinuation of the federal tax credit,” Brent Gruber, executive director of the EV practice at JD Power, told me. “In that time, we’ve seen that the interest hasn’t diminished, and in many cases, it’s increased.”
Last month, 26% of car shoppers said they’d be “very likely” to consider buying an EV, up three percentage points from the previous month, a recent JD Power survey found. The portion who reported being “very unlikely” to go electric dropped by four percentage points to 18%. The firm has been surveying car shoppers about their appetite for electrification since 2021, and April marked only the third time ever that more than a quarter of respondents fell into the “very likely” camp, Gruber told me.
One driving force may be obvious: A gallon of gas now costs more than $4.50, up from just under three bucks before the war with Iran. Gas prices have now remained high enough for long enough to shift attitudes towards EVs, Gruber said. Or maybe Americans are increasingly dubious that the conflict will end soon.
But openness to EVs is one thing. Sales are another. So far this year, the battery-electric slice of the U.S. car market has hovered around 6-7%, down from roughly 8% in 2024 and 2025. “You have to try and reconcile: Why are so many people interested in these products, but so few are actually buying them?,” Gruber said.
Affordability has always been a constraining factor, and it’s gotten worse since the tax credit ended, he said. On top of that, young people are the most interested in electric cars, but also the least likely to have the funds to buy them. Within the “very unlikely” cohort in JD Power’s survey, more than half would not pay any price premium for an EV.
But many of the reasons people are saying “no” to EVs are more a matter of perception or education. Lots of people say they would need chargers to be no more than 50 miles apart to consider an EV; that’s already the case across much of the country. “There are public chargers all over the place, but consumers just don’t know that,” he said.
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Nearly three-quarters of those who were least likely to buy an EV said they needed at least 500 miles of range to consider one. And yet, JD Power’s research has found that the average American takes 2-3 road trips a year, and they typically are 200-300 miles. Range anxiety tends to fade once someone actually buys an EV, he said.
One particularly concerning issue Gruber’s research has identified: While EV interest may still be high, the dealers at the front lines of EV education have been dropping the ball since the tax credit expired.
“Across the spectrum, on all the different topics that they could be educating consumers on, we’re seeing that happen less and less,” he said.
Contact the author: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com