By M.K. WILDEMAN
For most Americans, there’s less reason than ever to worry about finding chargers to fuel up an electric vehicle. But charging worries remain a top hesitation for potential buyers, second only to sticker shock.
Those concerns linger even as fast chargers multiply. More than 12,000 have been added within a mile of U.S. highways and interstates just this year, an Associated Press analysis of data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory shows. That’s about a fifth of quick-charging ports now in operation.
Yet a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago finds about 4 in 10 of U.S. adults still point to range and charging time as “major” reasons they wouldn’t buy an EV. That’s significant considering only about 2 in 10 Americans say they would be “extremely” or “very” likely to make a new or used electric vehicle their next car purchase.
That’s a perception Daphne Dixon, leader of a nonprofit that advocates for clean transportation, has been trying to fight. She has taken a coast-to-coast road trip in an EV each year since 2022. Always sporting hot pink and waving a bubblegum checkered race flag to match, Dixon posts snapshots of the charging experience along her 3,000-mile (4,828-kilometer) route, hoping to “bust” Americans’ anxiety about range and charging.