Following up on the 14 EV survey charts, graphs, & tables I shared last night, below are 3 interesting charts from a new survey conducted by PlugInsights, a new plug-in vehicle research firm. The survey covered 20% of today’s US plug-in car owners.
This first one shows that, even though electric car owners mostly charge at home, nearly 80% of them have charged in public within the past 6 months. However, there’s no indication how many of those drivers actually needed to charge in public. From free workplace chargers, free Tesla Superchargers, and EV events, there are plenty of opportunities to charge up outside of home for free or for show. Indeed, the biggest chunk of respondents do charge for free when they charge in public. Here’s this first chart:
This second chart is even more interesting, in my opinion. It shows that most EV drivers who don’t charge away from home don’t do so because they have no need to. The percentage shown is 51%, but 14% are people who haven’t driven their EV long enough to be of any use for this question. If you remove that 14%, then 58% of respondents didn’t charge away from home because they didn’t have any need to.
Lastly (as far as the charts go), this next one shows that plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) drivers’ longest trips are longer than 100% electric vehicle drivers’ longest trips. Not much surprise there (as with the similar finding posted on the bottom of yesterday’s article).
One final finding (from the materials shared with the press) that I thought was particularly interesting was that the average minimum range the surveyed plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) drivers thought a 100% electric car should have (to make range a complete non-issue) was 186 miles. That’s less than the range of the Tesla Model S (208 miles). I didn’t see, but am very curious, what percentage of the respondents were actually Model S owners. And I wonder what the average minimum range would be if they were removed.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that PEV drivers are quite attentive to the words and goals of Elon Musk, the CEO and Chairman of Tesla Motors, and Elon has stated on several occasions that he plans to bring a 200-mile EV to market by 2017 that will be half the price of the Tesla Model S. GM reportedly has a similar goal. We’ll see, but in any case, I think these targets could be influencing what PEV drivers consider “is needed.”
Overall, it looks like a fairly interesting report. Too bad I can’t see the whole thing without paying for it. If you’re interested in learning more, head on over to the PlugInsights page for the report, or perhaps drop a question here and we’ll get you an answer.
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