Summary of Survey Identifying Likely Electric Vehicles Adopters Published by Brattle and EPRI

A team of Brattle economists worked alongside the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to conduct a survey that provides insight regarding demographic characteristics of likely electric vehicle (EV) adopters. The survey – conducted by a team including Brattle Principals Daniel McFadden, Armando Levy, Ryan Hledik, and Jürgen Weiss, and Academic Advisor Kenneth Train – is part of a larger study examining the effectiveness of EV incentives on EV adoption on a utility-by-utility basis.

The survey was conducted in eight utility regions and presented respondents with 10 choice options. The respondents that were more likely to purchase an EV were typically younger individuals with a high household income who had prior exposure to an EV and lived in a densely populated area. The findings of this survey can serve as a valuable starting point for targeted marketing and customer outreach initiatives for EV adoption.

The results of this survey were combined with a vehicle modeling tool to show how the incentives impacted different utility regions over time. These projections, together with the costs of implementing utility programs, are assisting the utilities who participated in this research identify the most cost-effective ways to increase EV adoption in their service territories.

The full survey summary, “Identifying Likely Electric Vehicle Adopters,” can be found here.