Our new research shows that even electric vehicle owners tend to believe myths about the vehicles.
We studied the spread of misinformation regarding EVs in Australia, Germany, Austria and the United States. We found that misinformation was widespread in all four countries.
Unsurprisingly, people who endorsed false statements about EVs are significantly less likely than others to buy one.
Electric vehicles are essential in the fight against global warming. The widespread misinformation, however, is a major obstacle to the adoption of the technology and can have serious consequences for the move away from fossil fuels.
False EV claims are widely accepted
We conducted a study of 4200 people in four different countries who didn’t own an electric car. We asked them to rate their agreement with nine false claims about electric cars.
What we Found
We tallied the results by looking at all of the participants’ responses to all nine statements of misinformation – a total number of more than 366,000 responses. Then we calculated the percentage of responses that indicated agreement or disapproval.
Out of the 36 000 responses, 36% agreed with a particular statement while 23% disagreed. Another 24% were undecided, and 17% didn’t know.
The highest misinformation agreement was in Germany, and the lowest in the US. However, the differences between the nations were not large.
The myth that electric cars are more likely than petrol vehicles to catch fire is the most commonly believed. Depending on where you live, 43-56% agreed with this statement.
The agreement with misinformation is strongly related to a lack support for policies relating to electric vehicles and a future lack of intention of buying an EV.
In a separate study, 2100 Americans were interviewed. About half of them owned electric vehicles. Surprisingly EV owners were not significantly different from non-owners in their agreement to misinformation. This shows how deeply rooted the problem is.
Education is not the only thing that matters
We also looked at the factors that increase individuals’ susceptibility to EV misinformation.
People who scored high on “conspiracy Mentality” were the strongest predictors. They believed that conspiracies are commonplace in society. They saw things through the lens of secret agendas and corruption, and they distrusted institutions.
People who have progressive views on politics and the environment are less likely to spread misinformation about EVs.
The level of scientific education or knowledge was not a factor. This result is in line with previous studies and indicates that the widespread acceptance of misinformation comes from a distrust of institutions and experts, rather than a lack education.
There are reasons to be optimistic
Two interventions were used to test whether misinformation can be reduced among different samples of US participants. ChatGPT was asked to interview one group about their opinions on EV misinformation. The second group was asked to read a traditional EV Fact Sheet by the US Department of Energy. In a third group of “controls”, no intervention was tried.
Participants who had engaged in either ChatGPT, or with the fact sheet prior to our survey showed significantly less endorsement of EV false information compared to those in the control group. The same results were seen in a follow-up meeting ten days following the survey.
ChatGPT produced no misinformation regarding EVs. These results are based on existing research and demonstrate ChatGPT’s ability to reduce the endorsement of conspiracy theories.
How to deal with EV misinformation
Our research shows that misinformation regarding electric vehicles is widespread in Western countries. The reason for this isn’t a lack of knowledge or education, but rather a distrust in established institutions.
Those who are more informed about electric cars are less likely than others to spread misinformation.
It is clear that a double strategy will be needed to combat misinformation regarding EVs. First, those responsible for deliberately spreading misinformation must be held accountable. Second, the use of evidence-based information and AI tools can help build public resistance to false claims.
Matthew Hornsey is funded by the Australian Research Council.
