Lack of charging stations seems to be the main problem
Keep in mind, McKinsey wins lucrative consulting contracts by telling management what it wants to hear. McKinsey’s default cost cutting recommendation is always to cut Prole headcount, never cut the number, or pay, of redundant “JCs”.
Steve
3 Likes
I found the number a bit high.
I’ve not come across anyone who wants to go back to an ICE. However, most EV purchased here in the UK are fairly new so no one’s looking to P/X at the moment.
1905, Hayburner & Droppings Consulting released a study showing that 46% of automobile owners want to switch back to horses due to lack of gasoline sellers.
12 Likes
About 10 years ago we had a 2013 Volt. At the time we lived in an upscale Chicago suburb, and our cul-de-sac of three streets had about 75 homes. I kept track of the number of plug-in vehicles. There were, IIRC, six and over time five of the owners switched back to ICE. The 46% doesn’t seem unreasonable.
DB2
2 Likes
Are American electric vehicle owners quitting?
Dua et al.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361920924002293
Abstract:
We investigate the proportion of U.S. plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) owners who discontinued PEV ownership by disposing their PEV and buying a non-PEV on their next purchase, termed PEV discontinuance. Analyzing 8457 new car buyers’ who disposed of their PEVs, we find ∼35 % discontinuance. Single-car moderate-income households owning a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) are likelier to discontinue than multi-car high-income households owning a battery electric vehicle (BEV). Former PEV owners, when purchasing a new vehicle, are unwilling to compromise on key issues such as electric driving range (minimum 330 miles for BEVs), charging station locations, recharge times, home charging unavailability, higher purchase prices, battery replacement costs, and lower resale values, which are also concerns shared by households that continue to own PEVs. These insights, drawn from PEV owner experiences rather than perceptions, can guide PEV policy designs and targeted leasing & brand loyalty programs to reduce discontinuance.
DB2
HEVs and PHEVs are ICE vehicles. So much of the study is showing that people are considering “switching” from ICE to ICE. LOL. Sure there are plenty of people that bought a BEV that isn’t quite appropriate for them [yet], usually due to lack of easy charging, but there are a lot more that have bought a BEV and won’t buy anything else anymore.
(especially considering that such a large percentage of PHEV owners never or rarely plug them in.)
1 Like
Here’s a link to the annual McKinsey report:
There seems to a correlation with country size.
% very likely to Area, million
switch back to ICE sq. miles
Australia 49% 3.0
US 46 3.7
Brazil 38 3.3
China 28 3.7
Germany 24 0.14
France 18 0.25
Norway 18 0.15
Italy 15 0.12
Japan 13 0.14
DB2
2 Likes
Heck, I know a lot of people who will only rent an EV now because going back to an ICE, even for vacation, is just something they don’t want to do.
1 Like
Sure, but at the same time if the “recidivism” rate is 45% then the EV penetration timeline gets stretched out a lot.
DB2
Even in the survey, the 45% number doesn’t represent the percentage of people who say they are considering switching from BEV back to ICE. So we don’t know the real number from a properly done survey.
1 Like
They did muddy that up. Maybe things are clearer in the full survey results. At the same time, whatever the return rate – 25%, 35%, 45% – the point remains that it slows down the penetration rate and transition.
DB2
Big transitions always take a long time. This one will take at least 25 years, probably longer. But surveys in general are suspect in most cases because what people “say” are not always what they “do”. Furthermore, even if they normally would “do” what they “say”, over time circumstances change and their decision might change. For example, if something causes the price of an item to shift favorably, then perhaps some percentage will change their mind. Or any number of other examples that cause people to change their minds. And sometimes surveys are done in ways where the data itself is suspect because of how it was collected (for example bunching certain hybrids into “EV” for the purpose of the study). Another example is when the person being surveyed doesn’t truly understand the question they are being asked, but answers anyway (if you’ve ever seen a ballot initiative, they are almost always written obtusely and clearly in way that is difficult to understand.)
1 Like
If I read the Dua paper correctly, they looked at buy and sell actions over a number of years.
Therefore, we only assign “PEV discontinuance” status to respondents who disposed of their PEV and purchased a new non-PEV instead, i.e., those who no longer own a PEV.
DB2
Which might mean that conditions during the time the survey covered were materially different than they are now or going forward.
1 Like
Could be. Remember, however, the McKinsey 2024 survey found intention results that were not all that dissimilar to past transaction data.
DB2
Even this number is too high IMO:
Globally, 29% of EV owners are considering switching back to ICE, the survey results show.
Where did you get “very likely” to switch back to ICE in the report? Should be only “likely”.
Just above their graph it reads “Share of EV owners (very) likely to switch back to ICE”
DB2
1 Like
Why did you leave off the parentheses around very?
What is the significance of (very)?
Australia, America and Brazil are out numbered by China, Germany, France, Italy and Japan in the survey.