Indians have been adopting electric vehicles in a big way, but not everyone who’s made the switch is happy.
As many as 51 percent of EV car owners want to go back to using petrol or diesel vehicles, a survey from Park+ has found. Park+ provides parking solutions in residential and commercial complexes in Indian cities. Its survey results were from 500 EV car owners in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.
The survey showed that 51 percent of EV owners wanted to return to ICE vehicles for their next purchase. On average, EV owners reported lower satisfaction than traditional ICE vehicle owners, and cited everyday hassles for their dissatisfaction. As many as 88 percent of EV owners reported having charging anxiety. Charging anxiety is the term for vehicle drivers’ fears of unavailable or faulty EV charging points.
73 percent of respondents, meanwhile, reported that maintenance costs were a major concern. They said that local mechanics found it hard to repair and fix EVs, and the inability to obtain second opinions on repair costs created uncertainty. 33 percent of respondents were worried about the resale value of EVS — while the resale market for EVs is currently in a nascent phase, the lack of standardized tests to evaluate battery quality, which constitutes 30 percent of the value of the vehicle, was a problem. In comparison, it is straightforward to currently sell ICE vehicles with are easy to value with a large market with many buyers.
The survey showed that Tata Nexon was the most popular EV, and was favoured by 61 percent of respondents. It was followed by Tata Punch EV at 19 percent.
But the fact that 51 percent of EV car owners — at least as per Park+’s survey — want to return to ICE vehicles would worry the EV industry. The industry has shown a lot of promise of late, and traditional car manufacturers have been scrambling to produce more EV cars in anticipation of the increased demand. But this survey isn’t the only indication that there might be discontentment among users with electric vehicles — Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, who himself rides an EV, had said a few weeks ago that he was “pained” to see that EV sales had fallen 7 percent year-over-year in the latest April-June quarter. And with existing EV owners seemingly not overly enthused with EVs, and their word of mouth reports likely to slowly spread, the industry might be in for a bumpy few years ahead.