EVs remain a niche choice in the US, according to survey

While reliable charging at one’s workplace—emphasis on reliable—can make up for not being able to charge at home, 77 percent of US car buyers said they would prefer to charge at home (with just 13 percent indicating they would prefer charging at work).

For people who haven’t yet decided to switch, an under-appreciated fact is just how much more efficient an electric powertrain is compared to one that burns liquid petroleum. Ford’s experiment putting an electric powertrain into its best-selling F-150 pickup truck might have turned sour, but consider the following: The V6 truck needs more than three times as much energy to travel 300 miles as the one you plug into a wall, when you consider a gallon of gasoline contains 33.7 kWh of energy.

Among the EV-convinced, this is presumably old news. More than half—52 percent of US survey respondents—said lower fuel costs were a reason for choosing an EV, beating out concern for the environment, which ranked second at 38 percent. And between $20,000 and $49,999 appears to be the pricing sweet spot, with 24 percent looking for something in the $20,000–$34,999 band (cars like the new Nissan Leaf or the soon-reborn Chevrolet Bolt) and another 24 percent looking in the $35,000–$49,999 band, which has plenty of EVs to choose from, including Mercedes-Benz’s efficient new CLA.

Just seven percent of those EV buyers are looking to spend more than $75,000 on their electric car, but luxury EVs abound at this price point.

Meanwhile, range and charging times remain the foremost concerns among car buyers when discussing EVs, along with the cost premium. Some other fears are ill-founded, however. Thirty-eight percent said they were concerned about the cost of eventually replacing an EV’s battery. But EV batteries are proving more durable on the road than many early adopters once believed. There’s little evidence that EVs will require costly battery replacements with any more frequency than older cars require new engines, a concern that is rarely mentioned when someone wants to buy a gas-powered machine.

One of the biggest shifts in car design and manufacturing over the past few years has been the advent of the software-defined vehicle. Until now, pretty much every electronic function in a car, from an electric window to the antilock brakes, needed its own electronic control unit. Some cars can have up to two hundred discrete ECUs, some with software dating back years.