Canadian electric vehicle owners are not happy with the availability of reliable and convenient public charging — but that won’t stop them from buying another EV, according to a new study from the Canadian Automobile Association.

The survey of more than 16,000 EV owners, conducted by PlugShare Research for CAA, found 70% of respondents expressed some dissatisfaction with the number of fast chargers available, while more than half weren’t fully happy with the cost of public charging (58%), customer service from charging station operators (54%), the ease of finding faster charger locations (53%) and the reliability of the chargers (51%).

But an overwhelming 87% said they are likely to purchase another EV, although CAA’s report noted the 9% who said they are highly unlikely to get another is up from 1% in its 2022 survey. EV owners said the cost of fueling (91%) and maintaining (79%) their vehicles is much lower than their previous gas-powered cars.

“Our survey paints a picture of people happy they bought an EV, saying they are cheaper to operate and easier to maintain than their previous gas-powered vehicles,” CAA National vice president of public affairs Ian Jack said in a news release. “But it also found the experience of EV owners mirrors some of what the general public thinks — public charging isn’t good enough, especially outside major urban centers, and they are concerned about being caught with a dead battery in the winter.”

Indeed, 53% of EV drivers said they would rather drive a gas vehicle on long trips in extremely cold weather, and 67% said lower battery range in extreme cold weather has been a problem for them.

EV owners also said the vast majority of their charging is done at home and that most of their travel was within 100 kilometers of their home, significantly less than the average EV range of more than 400 km.

In a separate recent survey of 2,880 Canadians that included non-EV owners, CAA found 52% said they won’t purchase an EV because public charging is not reliable enough, and 68% are unlikely to buy one because the vehicle’s range drops too much when driving in cold weather.

CAA said it plans to conduct a real-world EV winter test from Ottawa to Mont Tremblant in February to measure the effective range of EVs in cold weather and how quickly they charge.

The full survey results are available here.