Public Resource
On Facebook, content trashing electric vehicles reliably draws engagement
Ilana Berger. Media Matters
An analysis of the top 100 EV-related posts on US political pages found that the vast majority of them were critical of the technology. Between January 1 and June 1, 81% of the Facebook posts analyzed were related to sales setbacks, performance or charging issues, or other negative press. These posts had over 1.3 million interactions, accounting for 79% of total interactions related to EVs. Posts related to automakers or car rental companies rolling back their commitments to selling EVs made up over a third of this content. Another popular topic focused on performance issues sometimes exacerbated by cold weather, which made up 20% of posts related to EVs. Nearly three quarters (74%) of EV-related posts on nonaligned pages (neither left-leaning or right-leaning) had a negative framing. These posts generated 83% of all interactions on EV-related posts from nonaligned pages. Out of the top 100 posts related to EVs on right-leaning pages, 95% were negative. Of the negative posts, 43% were related to automakers or car rental companies rolling back their commitments to selling EVs -- these posts earned over 477,000 interactions.