More than 50% of EV owners in India are willing to revert to ICE-powered vehicles

So, I was on the internet this morning just like other billion people on the planet and came across this article which grabbed my attention – it stated a survey that shows 51% of EV owners are not satisfied with their purchase. Naturally, I started digging in further and here’s what I found…

The Survey in question was undertaken by Park + an app-based platform that hosts over 1.5 crore car owners who can access the select features and services designed to make car ownership easier and feasible. The app also hosts nearly 25,000 EV owners as well.

The survey was targeted at EV owners residing in Delhi NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore – which resulted in 500 users responding to the study and 51% of them expressed dissatisfaction with their purchase.

Four factors were identified from the survey that EV owners were uncertain about or convinced them to deter away from EVs in the future.

Charging Anxiety:

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Contrary to the Range anxiety that is found among EV users from other parts of the world, 88% of Indian Users found it more mentally stressful – despite 20,000 charging stations installed across the nation, EV owners found them to be a rare sight in their cities and range anxiety was practically non-existent in their ownership history since majority of them confined their usage to 50km per day in the confines of the city limits – But lack of charging infrastructure is a point of concern for them moving forward with their EV.

Maintenance cost and Lack of support from Independent mechanics and Garages.

A common point of pain for any early adopter of any product lack of after-sales service and network will put you on a backfoot Physcologically – and will prevent you from completely enjoying your ownership experience to its fullest, due to uncertainties that may or may not occur and will it be diagnosed properly or not, or the solution will be adequate or not, the experts working on your modern EV is competent enough or not – so many questions do arise and rightfully so, but, with time these concerns will take care of itself when more EVs take to the roads and Service Based business and experts get more familiar with them.

This is also one of the major points of concern for73% of the owners as their local mechanic cannot identify the minutest of problems and can be handled only by a trained expert at the authorized service centre that’ll cost you a hefty amount of sum to fix them – and some locally manufactured EVs are plagues with issues that are bound to burn a hole in your pocket – Another issue thall gradually take care of its self as more consumers adopt EVs and after-sales service and parts becomes more feasible.

Till then good luck to all the early adopters, deal with it!

Unfavourable Resale Value.

A stark fall in the price after the Vehicle leaves the dealership floor is something EV owners were perhaps not prepared for or didn’t account for – and the difficulties and putting a value on a used EV, unlike in ICE vehicles age and mileage of the vehicle part constitutes to the resale value and condition of the mechanical components and engine constitutes for the other – which is quite difficult to do on an EV where determining the battery health and Electric motors is a lengthy process and perhaps not as accessible to everyone, everywhere.

On average EV owners are Unhappier than ICE car owners.

Above mentioned factors resulted, on average EV owners being much unhappier than ICE owners, and 55% will go back to ICE for their future purchases that suit the strength of the existing markets and any new surprises thrown at them can be dealt with plethora of experts at their doorsteps.

Amit Lakhotia, founder and CEO, of Park + said at the release of the results of the survey: The Indian 4W EV story is still being written and the need of the hour is to build a robust and smart EV charging infrastructure embedded in our current vehicular ecosystem.

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