63% Would Consider Buying an Electric Car, Survey Finds
Roughly 63% of Californians who expect to buy a new car would consider purchasing an electric vehicle--far higher than the estimates of most auto makers, according to a market-research survey released today.
Further, a third of the 400 Californians questioned said they would be willing to pay more for an electric car than for a gasoline-powered model, according to the telephone survey, commissioned by Automotive News and done in late October.
The results of the random survey are being made public to coincide with the 12th International Electric Vehicle Symposium, on through Wednesday in Anaheim.
“If I were a manufacturer forced to sell these products, I would be pleasantly surprised to see these figures,” said Doug C. Dohring, chairman and chief executive of Dohring Co., the Glendale firm that conducted the survey.
Consumer acceptance of electric cars--which could cost more initially while offering more limited performance--has been hotly debated. The auto makers, and some other surveys, have showed more skepticism for electric cars’ market potential.
A 1991 Gallup Poll of U.S. drivers found that 49% would be “interested” in buying an electric car. Last year, however, no more than 25% of new car buyers said they would be willing to “consider” an electric car, according to a survey by J.D. Power & Associates.
Yet “there has been a lot more exposure” to electric cars in the past year, Dohring said, offering one explanation for his survey’s more optimistic results. The Dohring poll found that 64% of the respondents have now seen an electric vehicle, at least on TV.
Another survey, still being evaluated by the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis, also indicates that people apparently like electric vehicles the more they know about them. In that survey so far, half the 450 households polled--all of which had at least two cars--would be willing to buy an electric car that costs about the same as a gas one but that has a much more limited range.
