A behavioral intervention to reduce range anxiety and increase electric vehicle uptake

we show that the compatibility of with increasing the demand of long battery and reducing willingness to adopt. We test a simple behavioral intervention in two randomized online experiments in and the U.S.: providing tailored compatibility information reduced range anxiety and increased willingness to pay for electric vehicles. Compatibility information more strongly increased preferences than information about privileged access to charging infrastructure, and selectively increased preferences of car owners for whom an electric vehicle would yield higher ﬁnancial beneﬁts. This scalable intervention may complement classical policy approaches in achieving a and global electriﬁcation of mobility.

The observed discrepancy between perceived and actual compatibility of electric vehicle range with consumer needs raises 48 the question to what extent consumer perceptions may be ill-informed or influenced by heuristic decision processes [30, 49 31]. For instance, judgments and decisions are more strongly influenced by easily computable and comparable product 50 attributes such as absolute battery range than by difficult-to-compare attributes such as actual compatibility [32,33]. Thus, 51 BEVs may be evaluated based on the comparison of their battery range with the (superior) range of petrol cars instead of the 52 comparison of BEV battery range with one's actual needs. Moreover, decision makers have been found to be frequently and 53 unconsciously influenced by the anchoring heuristic, whereby judgments tend to align with an initially provided reference 54 value which serves as anchor, even if the anchor is irrelevant to the judgment at hand [34,35]. When evaluating a BEV 55 battery range, the relatively high numerical value of the range in comparison to most daily trips may act as an anchor and 56 increase the salience of long car trips in memory (e.g., vacation trips). The resulting salience of exceptionally long car trips 57 may additionally contribute to a systematic underestimation of compatibility. 58 Systematic compatibility underestimations may increase the minimum battery range consumers deem necessary when 59 considering a BEV and reduce consumers' overall willingness to adopt a BEV. Correcting this underestimation may 60 therefore be a promising and presently untapped avenue to promote BEVs while avoiding the over-sizing of batteries. In 61 the present work, we (i) estimate the compatibility bias (i.e., the discrepancy between perceived and actual compatibility 62 with mobility needs), (ii) determine the effect of the compatibility bias on BEV preferences and battery range requirements, 63 (iii) develop and test a behavioral intervention to counteract this bias, (iv) identify reductions in range anxiety as underlying 64 mechanism of the effectiveness of the intervention, (v) assess the effectiveness of the intervention as a function of individual Note. Biased perception of the compatibility of an electric vehicle with one's mobility needs predicted lower intentions to buy an electric vehicle (left half of the table) and higher battery range requirements (right half of the table) in Germany (Study 1a) and the U.S. (Study 1b). The dependent variable intention to adopt an electric vehicle within the upcoming 10 years was measured on a scale from 1 "Not at all" to 7 "Absolutely Yes", while battery range required of an electric vehicle to present an alternative to your current combustion engine car was reported in km/miles (see Methods). The Compatibility bias was averaged across battery ranges within participants. All continuous predictors were z-standardized. * * * < .001, * * < .01, * < .05.
.001, one-sided test; see Panel A of Figure 2). Providing information about privileged infrastructure access also increased  Table 4).

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Providing tailored compatibility information decreases range anxiety 116 To elucidate the psychological mechanisms underlying the impact of the compatibility intervention on willingness to pay for 117 BEV, in Study 2b we additionally assessed range anxiety and its impact on willingness to pay. Range anxiety was assessed 118 as car owners' worry to run out of battery before reaching their destination when driving BEV with different battery ranges. 119 We predicted that range anxiety mediates the effect of compatibility information on willingness to pay (for the mediation   and household income (see Supplementary Table 1 and 2). Quotas were ensured by the market research institutes. German participants' homes to public transport services (see Table 1).

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Participants. An online sample of car owners from Germany was recruited via a market research institute (N = 280). and, applying the same procedure as in Study 1,261 reported the frequencies of their car trips in 2019. Next, participants were introduced to the WTP task. They were asked 262 to imagine that they had decided to replace their current car with a BEV which was available with different battery ranges.

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Participants were then randomly assigned to either the control or the compatibility condition. Accordingly, they reported 342), the compatibility (n = 310) or the infrastructure condition (n = 347). In all conditions, range anxiety (i.e., worry to 296 run out of battery before reaching one's goal) was measured on a scale from 1 "not worried at all" to 7 "very much worried" 297 after each WTP trial. Finally, belief in the accuracy of the battery range information was measured on a scale from 1 "not 298 accurate at all" to 7 "absolutely accurate" at the very end of the experiment.