U.S. car owners increasingly doubt the cleanliness of EVs

Electric vehicle sales in the United States are still going strong mainly thanks to state subsidies, but more and more buyers find themselves asking the question: are they really as eco-friendly as advertised?

According to a recent poll conducted by Ipsos, only 58% of the respondents find battery-electric vehicles (BEV) less harmful to the environment than the traditional cars with internal combustion engines (ICE). This represents a mild decline from 63% a couple years ago.

Environmentalists have multiple explanations for this. One is that the Americans tend to stick to their conservative worldview. Another is that all the media publications questioning the pollution-preventing virtues of EVs affect the big picture.