Tourism has a vital role to play in resolving the EV charging conundrum
Ground transportation is going through its biggest transformation of the last 100+ years. The shift to electric vehicles (EVs) over the next 10-20 years will have profound impacts on the economy, society and environment. It will also reshape travel and tourism.
Like all great societal changes, though, the EV revolution hasn’t been without its fair share of bumps in the road, if you’ll forgive the expression. Our research shows that EV drivers often lack confidence in their ability to easily charge their vehicles on long drips. This has led to a drop in road trip travel among the lucrative EV driver segment and impacted the adoption of EVs across the U.S. and around the world.
This article details the importance of this shift to EVs, explains the crisis of confidence amongst EV travelers and shares actionable insights for tourism leaders to address this challenge and help lead the EV revolution.
The Four Trends Driving EV Adoption
It is important to understand that the migration to EVs is inevitable, driven by four fundamental economic, social and environmental trends:
- Lower cost compared to gas vehicles. Buying an EV is already cheaper in markets like China, with North America and Europe soon to follow. Plus running costs, including charging an EV, are significantly less than a gas vehicle (see more).
- Massive investment in electric transportation of the future. Governments and major auto companies see the switch to EVs as inevitable and urgent. Trillions of dollars of private and public investment have already been invested globally in an electric future for transportation. This includes almost $200 billion in private sector investment in the US alone to create new or reworked EV manufacturing plants (especially in southern states like Georgia and South Carolina), huge R&D investment in areas like battery technology and over $7 billion earmarked for expanded EV charging infrastructure from the federal government’s infrastructure bill. (see more).
- An improved driving and ownership experience. Many drivers prefer EVs for their effortless acceleration and braking, safer overtaking, a quiet and more comfortable ride and less maintenance requirements. For these drivers, the benefits of EVs will make gas vehicles seem increasingly anachronistic. Watch Ford CEO Jim Farley discuss the rapid evolution of EVs.
- Sustainability benefits. The increasing impacts of extreme weather and rising sea levels act as a continual reminder of the urgency of addressing climate change. EVs offer a significantly lower carbon footprint than internal combustion vehicles over their full ‘lifecycle’ (see this comparison from Recurrent) and, in many nations, are travel and tourism’s most significant way to address climate change after aviation. See more in our Guide to Action on Climate Change for destinations.
U.S. Travelers' Crisis of Confidence about Traveling in an EV
While EVs continue to build a promising future across the globe, this technological revolution has hit a major obstacle in the United States. In our annual major Road Trips & EV Travel research study conducted with Longwoods International, we found that a sizable majority of U.S. travelers cite concerns over charging as a major challenge when considering an EV road trip.
Here are two key findings of the research:
- 59% of US travelers indicated that finding a charging station was a “primary challenge” when traveling with an EV.
- A vast majority of US travelers cite some type of concern about the ease of charging an EV, wait times or range anxiety while traveling. Across all these factors, concerns have worsened noticeably in the last year.
