Europeans need to live the benefits of EVs and Heat Pumps to believe them
Europe’s energy security answer is hiding in plain sight
The Strait of Hormuz crisis has long passed the 100-day mark. Household budgets across Europe are feeling it, and citizens are drawing their own conclusions.
The polling commissioned by E3G, T&E and the Electrification Alliance found that over 6 in 10 Europeans (64%, averaged across five countries) believe reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels makes Europe safer.
New Verian research across six European countries now gives us more granularity on where that conviction comes from. The answer, it turns out, is straightforward: lived experience.
75% of EV owners say they feel better protected against the current fossil fuel price spike, yet only 33% of petrol and diesel car owners believe an electric vehicle would offer them the same shield. The benefits have to be lived to be believed.
The same pattern holds for home heating. Just 35% of all respondents believe a heat pump would protect them from energy price increases. Among those who already own one, that figure jumps to 58%.
The protection is real. The problem is access. And Europeans know it , which is why our polling found majority support for government action to make both technologies more accessible across all five countries surveyed.
More than half back government financial support for heat pumps: Italy (71%), France (66%), Germany (61%), Spain (58%), and Poland (51%). EU EV funding commands majority support in four of the five countries, and in those same countries most respondents also back direct government support for household EV purchasing.
And across all five countries, this is emphatically a transpartisan cause. In Germany, 70% of CDU/CSU voters back EU EV funding, virtually identical to the 68% recorded among SPD voters. In Italy, 76% of Fratelli d’Italia voters support government funding for heat pumps, close to the 81% support from Forza Italia voters. In France – a country defined by sharp political polarisation – 67% of Le Pen voters and 69% of Macron voters are in near-perfect agreement on government support for heat pumps specifically.
Policymakers who treat electrification as a progressive cause are misreading their own electorates.
As for how governments should act: Verian’s respondents pointed clearly to removing or reducing VAT on heat pumps, financial assistance for installation, and lower electricity taxes. As it happens, that first measure, 0% VAT on heat pumps, EVs, batteries and smart chargers, following the example already set by solar panels, is one of the ten actions the Electrification Alliance explicitly calls for in The EU Electrification Action Plan as a tool for energy independence.
The picture is consistent: citizens believe that electrification makes Europe safer, they want government help to access it, and they have even identified the instruments they prefer. The EU Electrification Action Plan is the moment to deliver. It’s time for the EU to act on the public mandate.