[Un article de The Conversation écrit par Christian Bretter – Chercheur principal en psychologie environnementale, Université du Queensland – Matthew Hornsey – Professeur, École de commerce de l”Université du Queensland, Université du Queensland – et Samuel Pearson – Chercheur postdoctoral, Université du Queensland]
Our new research shows it: there are more people who believe in false ideas on electric cars than people who reject them. And even the owners of electric vehicles tend to join these myths.
We have examined the prevalence of disinformation concerning electric cars in four countries: Australia, the United States, Germany and Austria. Unfortunately, we have noticed a strong adhesion to these false ideas in all the countries studied.
Unsurprisingly, people who believed in these erroneous claims were significantly less inclined to consider the purchase of an electric vehicle.
However, electric cars are an essential tool in the fight against climate change. But omnipresent disinformation constitutes an important obstacle to their adoption, with serious consequences for the energy transition.
Large membership of false ideas on electric vehicles
We conducted a survey of 4,200 people who did not have an electric car in the four countries. We have measured their degree in agreement with nine misleading affirmations on electric cars.
Nine myths about electric vehicles
| Due to the intensive nature of the production process, electric cars produce more carbon emissions over their entire lifespan than petrol cars. | Total emissions from petrol cars exceed those of electric cars on the whole of their lifespan. |
|---|---|
| The electromagnetic fields emitted by electric cars strongly disrupt the migration of birds and other wild animals. | Electric cars mainly emit very low frequency electromagnetic fields, which are unlikely to have an impact on fauna |
| Electric cars do not reduce climate change because their production requires the extraction of rare ores, which leads to deforestation and therefore increases the CO₂ in the atmosphere. | The mining extraction necessary for the manufacture of electric car batteries can cause deforestation, but their overall impact on emissions is better than that of petrol cars. |
| Electric cars emit electromagnetic fields that can cause serious health problems, including cancer. | The field levels measured in electric cars are considered low and do not have a health risk. |
| Electric cars are more likely to take fire than petrol cars. | Electric cars are less likely to set fire than petrol cars.] |
| The batteries of electric cars are designed to break down after a certain number of charging cycles to force the owners to replace them and increase the profits of manufacturers. | Apart from major reminders, the replacement rate for electric car batteries is less than 1 %. |
| The batteries of electric vehicles are deliberately rendered non -scalable to oblige consumers to replace them. | There is no evidence that electric car batteries are deliberately designed so as not to be improved in terms of profit. The downtime of an electric car battery is 15 years |
| Compared to the technology of petrol cars, that of electric cars would be designed to be unnecessarily complex in order to prevent repairs made yourself and to force people to turn to expensive service centers. | Electric cars do not require more workshop passages than petrol cars. Repairs are more difficult for security reasons, but nothing proves that this is intentional for reasons of profit. |
| Accidents involving electric cars are deliberately underdeveloped by the authorities. | There is no evidence to support this myth. |
What we found
To analyze the results, we have examined the responses given to these nine affirmations, more than 36,000 responses. We then calculated how many answers expressed an agreement or a disagreement.
On all the responses, 36 % demonstrated an agreement with an erroneous statement, 23 % expressed disagreement, 24 % were undecided and 17 % said they did not know.
Membership of disinformation was the strongest in Germany and the weakest in the United States, but the differences between the countries remained weak.
The most widespread myth was that electric cars are more likely to take fire than petrol cars. According to the country, between 43 % and 56 % of those questioned agreed with this assertion.
Membership of these false ideas was strongly correlated with the refusal to support policies in favor of electric vehicles and the lack of intention to buy one in the future.
In another part of the study, we interviewed 2,100 people in the United States, around half of whom owned an electric vehicle. Surprising fact: the owners were not significantly less likely to adhere to disinformation than non-owners. This shows how deeply these false ideas are deeply rooted.
It is not a question of level of education
We have also tried to understand what makes some people more vulnerable to disinformation on electric vehicles.
The most decisive factor was a strong tendency to conspiracy: to believe that plots are common, perceive the world as dominated by corruption and secret agendas, and be wary of institutions.
People with progressive political and ecological convictions were less likely to believe in these false ideas.
The level of scientific knowledge or education was not a significant factor. This observation, in accordance with previous research, suggests that disinformation is more linked to distrust of institutions and experts than a lack of knowledge.
Reasons to hope
We tested two approaches to counter disinformation with another group of American participants. A group has exchanged with Chatgpt about its opinions on electric vehicles. Another has read a classic information sheet from the US Energy Ministry. A third witness group has received no information.
The participants exposed to one or the other of the content (Chatgpt or sheet) demonstrated a clearly less membership of false ideas compared to the control group. This effect still persisted ten days later.
Note that Chatgpt has not generated any disinformation on the subject. These results confirm existing research showing that Chatgpt can help reduce membership of conspiracy theories.
How to fight against disinformation on electric vehicles
Our results show that disinformation about electric cars is well established in Western countries. This vulnerability is not linked to a lack of knowledge, but rather a distrust of established institutions.
We have also found that people who are faced with verified facts on electric vehicles are less likely to join disinformation.
This suggests that a double strategy is needed to reduce the impact of this disinformation: on the one hand, hold those who disseminate it voluntarily; On the other hand, disseminating information based on evidence, in particular via accessible tools such as AI, to strengthen public resilience in the face of false affirmations.
With an unwavering passion for local news, Christopher leads our editorial team with integrity and dedication. With over 20 years’ experience, he is the backbone of Wouldsayso, ensuring that we stay true to our mission to inform.
