“Counteracting Electric Vehicle Range Concern With a Scalable Behavioral Intervention”, Mario Herberz, Ulf J. J. Hahnel, Tobias Brosch2022-05-19 (cognitive bias, sociology of tech)⁠:

All-electric vehicles remain far from reaching the market share required to meaningfully reduce transportation-related CO₂ emissions. While financial and technological adoption barriers are increasingly being removed, psychological barriers remain insufficiently addressed.

Here we show that car owners systematically underestimate the compatibility of available battery ranges with their annual mobility needs and that this underestimation is associated with increased demand for long battery ranges and reduced willingness to adopt electric vehicles.

We tested a simple intervention to counteract this bias: providing tailored compatibility information reduced range concern and increased willingness to pay for electric vehicles with battery ranges between 60–240 miles [2019 Tesla Model 3], relative to a 50-mile-range baseline model [2013 Nissan Leaf]. Compatibility information more strongly increased willingness to pay than did information about easy access to charging infrastructure, and it selectively increased willingness to pay for car owners who would derive greater financial benefits from adopting an electric vehicle.

This scalable intervention may complement classical policy approaches to promote the electrification of mobility.