What Conversations Between PEV Owners and Owners of Non-PEVs in California Tell Us About Sustaining a Transition

The excitement of advocates, policymakers and automakers for the increasing number of makes and models of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) coming to market, increasing number of PEVs sold in successive years, and growing networks of PEV charging infrastructure is presently lost on the vast majority of the car-buying public—even in California, touted as being among the global PEV market leaders. Sustaining PEV market growth will become problematic if the number of car-owning households paying attention to PEVs is not growing, too. Survey data from California in 2014 and 2017 show no increase over time in the percentage of households that have already purchased, shopped for, or even started to gather information about PEVs. Conceptual frameworks regarding how innovations spread through relevant social groups stipulate communication is necessary between the few early actors and the many more potential later actors. With the goals of improving PEV policy and marketing, we explored what might be said between households who have purchased PEVs and some who have not. Workshops were convened in three regions throughout California representing high to low PEV sales and charging infrastructure development. In response to non-PEV owners’ questions, PEV owners gave “account,” i.e., told their stories of buying and driving a PEV which included informal tallies of costs, incentives, and benefits. This storytelling conveyed to non-PEV owners many of the signs of PEVs, i.e., how PEVs, charging infrastructure, and incentives are (to those who know the signs) symbols of transition to electric-drive vehicles. Routinely, but not universally, learning the symbol system of PEVs produced more positive evaluations of PEVs’ symbolic, functional, and affective benefits among the non-PEV owners. The workshops reinforce the results from large sample survey research showing the lack of attention paid to PEVs by most car-owning households and suggest elements of a social narrative to promote a transition to electric-drive vehicles.