A study has looked into why about 18% of electric car owners go back to gas-powered vehicles.

The reasons are mostly exactly what we expected.

University of California Davis researchers surveyed just over 4,000 households who own or owned electric vehicles in California and found that about 20% of plug-in hybrid owners and 18% of all-electric vehicle owners end up going back to gasoline-powered vehicles.

This number will be surprising to some, but the focus of the study was the reasons that led them to switch back to gas, and when you look into those, they are not really surprising.

Researchers Scott Hardman and Gil Tal wrote in the study posted in the Nature Energy journal:

“Here, on the basis of results from five questionnaire surveys, we find that PEV discontinuance in California occurs at a rate of 20% for plug-in hybrid electric vehicle owners and 18% for battery electric vehicle owners. We show that discontinuance is related to dissatisfaction with the convenience of charging, having other vehicles in the household that are less efficient, not having level 2 (240-volt) charging at home, […]