Charged up with peace in mind: Unraveling the factors of range anxiety among norwegian electric vehicle drivers
Junianna Zatsarnaja, Katharina Reiter, Milad Mehdizadeh, Alim Nayum, Trond Nordfjærn
Abstract
• Range anxiety is lowest on spontaneous trips and highest in extreme weather. • Ease of charging and control beliefs are important for lower range anxiety. • Perceived flexibility in charging is linked to lower range anxiety. • General risk propensity is related to higher range anxiety. • Older, female and less-experienced EV drivers associate with higher range anxiety. Range anxiety and its associated factors are crucial for designing effective solutions to enhance the Electric Vehicle (EV) user experience. The present study is based on a survey of 1,005 EV drivers in Norway. It aims to provide insights into the perception of range anxiety in a country with well-developed electric mobility. We contribute to the state-of-the-art by exploring the concept of range anxiety based on eleven potential explanatory variables describing EV adopters’ driving experience, charging-related user experience, psychological characteristics, and socio-demographics. Our analysis showed that the longer the EV driving experience, the greater the perceived ease of charging and charging flexibility, the lower the range anxiety will be. Further, stronger control beliefs over EV’s charging state and willingness to take risks relate to lower range anxiety. Additionally, being younger and being female are associated with lower range anxiety among EV drivers. However, perceived helpfulness of charging guidance, technology openness, and settlement size of EV drivers are not significantly associated with range anxiety. Our study highlights the importance of providing situation- and user-oriented charging information, a smooth and easy-to-understand charging process, and the need to support EV drivers who are less experienced, older, and routine-based.