What's keeping drivers from buying EVs? Mostly price.

More drivers are buying them, but electric cars still make up a small share of the market in Rhode Island.

A new survey from AAA Northeast of drivers in the Ocean State and its neighbors raises questions about how fast the electric vehicle market share will grow, even as state and federal lawmakers pass policies that aim to electrify the transportation sector and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

More than half of the 1,749 AAA members from Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey who responded to the survey said they never plan to buy a fully electric vehicle, and nearly as many said they wouldn’t even consider a plug-in hybrid.

What is stopping drivers from buying an electric vehicle?

The main barriers to buying appear to be the prices of EVs, which despite coming down, are still higher on average than those of gas-powered cars, as well as concerns about access to charging stations and the time it takes to recharge batteries.

“What’s interesting is that this is an area of the country with an above-average market share of electric vehicles and we're still seeing this resistance,” said Jillian Young, director of public relations for AAA Northeast.

The survey also found that a big chunk of the driving population still needs convincing about the merits of EVs. While some respondents expressed a lack of familiarity with electric cars – a quarter of them said they weren’t confident in even being able to drive one – others said they were put off by long charging times at public stations.

On the former issue, Young said there’s a fear of the unknown, and that a solution may simply be better education.

As to the latter, she said that drivers who currently own EVs primarily rely on charging at home, where time isn’t as much of an issue.

All new car sales in RI will need to be electric cars by 2035

The results of the survey, released on Aug. 15, come as Rhode Island moves to adopt clean car standards modeled on those in California that aim to phase out the sale of new gas-powered cars by requiring auto dealers to annually ramp up their offerings of zero-emission vehicles. Under the regulations, all new cars for sale would be electric by 2035.

AAA, a nonprofit auto club, has not taken a position on those rules.

The standards are an essential part of the McKee administration’s strategy to cut emissions from transportation, which accounts for nearly 40% of greenhouse gases in Rhode Island. The Act on Climate, state law enacted three years ago, requires that the state gradually cut its carbon footprint in the coming years, with the ultimate goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

To encourage the adoption of more electric cars, the state is offering incentives to reduce the costs of electric cars and charging equipment. As of July 1, there were 12,272 electric vehicles in Rhode Island, according to the state Department of Environmental Management.

More: Interested in an electric car? Here's all the incentives you could qualify for.

Is there an upshot?

If there’s good news for policymakers in the AAA survey, it’s that 15% of respondents said they already own a fully electric car or a hybrid, and another 44% said they expected to buy one at some point.

Young said that AAA conducted the survey to understand consumer trends in the market.

“We want to understand what the general public thinks about the auto market, and electric vehicles are a big piece of that,” she said. “We hope this data informs policymakers as well.”

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: What's keeping drivers from buying EVs? Mostly price.