Research institute · Pew Research Center
Pew: US Energy Views Polarise as EV Interest Stalls at 32%
Pew's March 2026 survey of 3,524 US adults finds support for prioritising renewable energy has fallen to 57% from 79% in 2020, and EV purchase consideration has slipped to 32%, down 10 points from 2022. The partisan split is now wide enough that UK ESG and EV-adjacent brands need to rethink one-size creative and segment-pricing assumptions.
Source published Summarised
Key findings at a glance
- 57% of Americans say the US should prioritise renewable energy over fossil fuels. That share was 79% in 2020.
- 71% of Republicans now say fossil fuels should be the priority. Just 28% back renewables, down from 65% in 2020.
- 83% of Democrats still say wind and solar should be the priority. Slightly softer than earlier this decade but holding.
- 65% of Americans back federal policies to expand wind and solar production. Down 7 percentage points from 72% in 2022.
- 62% of Republicans now back federal policies to encourage oil and gas drilling. Up 11 percentage points since January 2022.
- 54% of Republicans say the federal government should encourage nuclear power production. Up from 42% in 2022.
- 32% of Americans would seriously consider an electric vehicle as their next vehicle. Down from 42% in 2022.
- 44% of Americans would seriously consider a hybrid. That share is roughly flat since 2024, hybrid is the more durable cleaner-vehicle bet right now.
- 47% of Democrats would consider an EV, down from 58% in 2022. Even the most receptive segment is cooling.
- 17% of Republicans would consider an EV. The partisan EV gap is now 30 percentage points.
- 61% of current EV owners would seriously consider another EV. Repeat-purchase intent is far stronger than first-time consideration.
- 40% of Americans say the federal government should encourage EV use. Federal tax credits for EV buyers expired on 30 September 2025.
What the report covers
This is Pew Research Center's full 2026 read on how the US public sees energy sources, federal energy policy, and personal-vehicle choices. The survey ran from 16 to 22 March 2026, a few weeks into the US military conflict with Iran, with international energy markets in flux and US pump prices elevated. That context matters: the findings are stickier than a pre-shock baseline would be, because they were captured under live cost-of-living pressure.
Pew measures three things: (1) which energy sources Americans want prioritised at the federal level (wind, solar, oil, gas, coal, nuclear), (2) whether the government should encourage, discourage, or stay neutral on each source's production, and (3) personal purchase intent for electric vehicles and hybrids. The story across all three is the same: the centre has moved towards fossil fuels and away from renewables since 2020, the partisan gap has widened sharply, and EV consideration has slid from a 2022 peak. The parallel UK data set is the DESNZ Public Attitudes Tracker; for marketers operating on both sides of the Atlantic the UK government's running survey is the equivalent benchmark to read alongside Pew.
The shift is asymmetric. Republican views have moved sharply; Democratic views have softened only modestly. The story is not "America has turned against renewables", it is "one half of the political map has turned against renewables, while the other half is slightly less enthusiastic than it was."
What this means for UK marketers
Three operational implications for UK digital marketing teams running ESG-positioned, energy-adjacent, or EV-adjacent campaigns.
Don't assume a universal green premium in creative. Half the addressable US market is now actively cooler on renewables than it was four years ago, and the same softening is visible in UK polling. Creative that anchors the value proposition to environmental benefit alone has a smaller persuadable audience than it did in 2020-2022. The performance lane is cost-of-ownership, energy independence, reliability, framings that work across the political map. Save environmental framing for segments where you have audience signal it lands (urban, under-30, repeat green-product buyers).
Hybrid is the durable lane in cleaner-vehicle marketing, not EV. EV consideration has fallen 10 points; hybrid consideration is roughly flat at 44%. For UK automotive dealers, fleet brokers, and accessory brands running Google Ads or Meta Ads in this category, the implication is clear: hybrid-led creative and hybrid-keyword campaigns will pull from a larger and steadier audience than EV-led equivalents through 2026. The exception is the EV-owner segment, 61% repeat consideration means existing EV households are a high-conversion remarketing pool, and brands selling chargers, accessories, services, insurance, or second EVs should treat them as a distinct first-party audience worth bidding hard against.
Audience demographics matter more, not less. The EV-consideration gap by age (under-30 split, 50+ negative) and by urbanity (urban/suburban interested, rural not) is wider than the partisan gap on most other questions. For UK B2C campaigns, that means tighter geo and demographic targeting on ad platforms, and abandoning national-broadcast creative in favour of segmented creative variants. "EV for everyone" creative wastes spend on rural-suburban audiences who already self-report low interest; the same budget concentrated on urban under-50 households will pull harder.
One reframing for ESG-positioned brands: the data does not say green messaging is dead. It says the persuadable audience is smaller and more concentrated than the universal-appeal era assumed. That favours organic search and editorial-driven content over broadcast, prospects already searching for "best home solar UK" or "hybrid SUV running costs" are pre-selected as warm. The acquisition-cost gap between green-curious search audiences and green-curious display audiences will widen in 2026.
How they got the data
Pew Research Center surveyed 3,524 US adults from 16-22 March 2026 via the American Trends Panel, an address-based recruited online probability panel run by Pew. The survey was fielded a few weeks into the US-Iran military conflict, which had pushed gas prices up and lifted EV-related search interest, readers should weight the findings as a snapshot taken under live energy-price pressure, not a quiet-period baseline. Sample is weighted back to US adult population proportions.
The questions on EV and hybrid consideration are unchanged from prior waves (2022, 2024, 2025), so the year-over-year trend lines are clean. The federal-policy questions use the same encourage/discourage/neither three-way frame Pew has run since 2022. The full questionnaire, weighting documentation and topline tables are linked on the source page.
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From Pew Research Center · published 03/04/2026