What we think about electric car charging may be wrong

Main points

• Switching to electric vehicles is easier, but availability, price and psychological barriers remain.
• Existing mindsets are holding back EV charging habits; we need to shift to prioritizing plugging in.
• Improving infrastructure, education and adopting new charging habits are key to realizing the benefits of electric vehicles.

In one sense, switching to an electric vehicle is easier than ever. Whether you’re buying from a classic car manufacturer or a company like Rivian or Tesla that specializes in electric vehicles, there are plenty of options. But looking at it another way, even as the selection has improved, availability, and even more importantly, price, hasn’t. You still have to be willing to wait weeks or months to get the car you want, and without the tax credit, you probably won’t be able to get it for less than $30,000.

Larger psychological barriers remain. “Range anxiety,” the widespread fear of running out of charge before reaching a destination or charging location, has been exacerbated by the increasing size of car batteries and the adoption of Tesla’s more mature charging network and standards. Concerns have eased, but switching from natural gas remains a hurdle.

We believe charging errors will not only make it more difficult to own an electric vehicle, but could lead to EVs and the infrastructure that supports them going in the wrong direction.

A new article in Energy magazine, “Mental models guiding electric vehicle charging,” by Frances Sprei and Willett Kempton, now open access, shows , the mental model many of us apply to charging is deeply mired in our understanding of liquids. Gas cars prevent us from adapting to the convenience of electric cars. We believe charging errors will not only make it more difficult to own an electric vehicle, but could lead to EVs and the infrastructure that supports them going in the wrong direction.

Beyond liquid fuels

Spree and Kempton spoke with experienced and novice EV owners in the United States and Sweden to identify three different mental models that drivers use to guide charging habits. They either monitor the car’s instruments (“Monitor model“) and use remaining battery percentage or range to determine when to look for a charger, planning trips ahead of time around charger availability and charging stations (“planning model“), or charging an electric car based on specific events that occur throughout the day, such as coming home from get off work (“event triggered model“).

Both monitoring instrumentation and planning models can be applied to ICE vehicles just as easily as they are to EVs, but the event-triggered model is unique to EVs, primarily because of how different their “refueling” experience is. As the article points out, Kempton was quick to remind me via Zoom that the study participants understood how gas-powered vehicles worked, but had a loose grasp of the details of batteries and charging.

Cell phones are a convenient analogue, and electric cars often indicate charge with a battery graphic, percentage, and remaining range, but charging an electric car is much different than charging a cell phone or filling up a car with gas.

“Electric refueling is slow, but the user-involved process of connecting and initiating refueling is fast, faster than with gasoline,” Spree and Kempton wrote. While there’s a lot of initial friction involved in filling up your car (opening the gas cap, unscrewing the gas cap, swiping your card to pay, and making sure gas actually goes into the tank), filling the tank takes a few minutes. Charging an electric car is actually the opposite.

On the right charging network, powering an electric vehicle is as simple as opening the charging port and plugging in the charger. The only problem is that charging takes hours, not minutes. Fast chargers already exist, more are being installed, and EV battery capacity continues to grow, but reconciling the fundamental differences between gas and EV refueling requires new ways of thinking that don’t necessarily wait for technological advancements.

Charging an electric car is actually the opposite. On the right charging network, powering an electric vehicle is as simple as opening the charging port and plugging in the charger.

The unconscious solution to a problem faced by experienced and novice EV owners alike is to associate “plugging in” with a specific event, whether it’s taking the dog for a walk, coming home from get off work, or going to the grocery store. If they could make charging a habit, rather than a reaction to external information on the meter, range anxiety would disappear.

“When novices acquire an appropriate mental model of electric vehicles, their attention shifts from the time it takes for the vehicle to transmit energy to the time it takes to plug in,” Spree and Kempton explained.

If you plug it in before going to bed, your car will usually be ready to go the next day. If you plug it in while running errands at the mall, you should have enough power to get home. Tying the decision to charge your electric car to a larger choice that needs to happen anyway turns the car battery from a problem to be solved to part of your daily routine. It also doesn’t limit you from applying other models. Even if you’re typically stuck in an event-triggered model, apps that plan ahead for electric cars and maps of available chargers can still be useful for longer trips.

transformation model

For EV owners, switching to a new mental model doesn’t necessarily come naturally, and when I asked Kempton why some study participants didn’t switch to an event-triggered model, his explanation was simple: “A lot of it has to do with timing. ”

Breaking habits and shifting mindsets takes time, especially when we are drawn to things that require fewer, simpler decisions. As Spree and Kempton’s article points out, there should also be more education and better infrastructure to facilitate this change. This could come from automakers selling cars that offer strategies on how to use an electric vehicle before driving off the lot.

As Spree and Kempton write, it could also come from policymakers who should “encourage low-cost, easily authorized charging in areas where people sleep or work but don’t have dedicated parking spaces.” Third-party companies could, too. provide help. “There’s a company in Brooklyn that’s building a curbside charger called ‘It’s Electric’ that’s trying to solve this problem,” Kempton said. Whatever happens, you don’t need to be a homeowner to have an event like a parking trigger charge.

Breaking habits and shifting mindsets takes time, especially when we are drawn to things that require fewer, simpler decisions.

Improving infrastructure and education could prevent electric vehicles from having to be so similar to traditional gas-powered vehicles. “If your goal is to make an internal combustion engine car and try to get the exact same battery range … that means a lot of battery capacity is not going to be used,” Spree said. Until now, bigger batteries have been one of the ways automakers have eased range anxiety, but they also come with trade-offs.

A big, heavy battery might let you drive longer without charging, but it takes away from the supposed benefits of electric cars. “They increase the price of the vehicle, so it’s harder to get a more price-competitive product. They’re heavier, so they require more metal mining and scarce resource extraction,” Spree explained. “With heavier vehicles, there’s also greater wear and tear on the road, so there’s more particulate matter in the air. So the pollution impact of electric vehicles increases.”

Electric vehicles are often seen as a simple Band-Aid to the CO2 problem plaguing us, but the reality is much more complex. They are part of the solution, and using them correctly requires some work. This doesn’t mean learning how is insurmountable. The end result is worth it.In Spree’s words, “Once you get them, once it clicks how you’re supposed to do it, it actually Easier Own an electric car instead of an internal combustion engine car. ”