Why America’s Car Buyers Are Rethinking EVs
High sticker prices, steep financing rates and range anxiety will fuel a slowdown in US electric-car adoption this year.
Illustration: Nick Öhlo for Bloomberg Businessweek
When Debbie Mettenleiter’s old Hyundai needed replacing after racking up 200,000 miles, she decided to jump on the electric car bandwagon. After all, Teslas seemed to be at every stoplight in San Diego, where she lives. Even her daughter has one. So she put down a $250 deposit on a Tesla Model Y.
Then she started talking to friends about their electric vehicle experiences and the difficulty they had accessing reliable charging stations. She also didn’t enjoy getting into the back seat of her daughter’s Model Y to ride with her grandchild. “I hit my head every time,” says Mettenleiter, 67, a retired executive assistant.