A man who made the switch to an electric car hybrid said he felt 'conned' because the vehicle couldn't go as far as its manufacturer promised.
Belfast Telegraph Night Editor John Laverty said 'range anxiety' was a serious problem for him.
He had the plug in hybrid car for a year and a half but has since switched back to a petrol engine.
John told Lunchtime Live he believes the island is simply not ready for the change.
"I honestly believed it was what I wanted; I believed that it was a sort of a gateway car that would take me to fully electric," he said.
"This is the new world, the fully electric world.
"Once you get it and you realise that this is an EV, in your mind you're thinking 'I'll try and use it as much on electricity as I possibly can'.
"It started to actually affect me - I didn't think when I got a plug in hybrid that I'd suffer this range anxiety that most people suffer when they have fully electric vehicles.
"These cars do not do the range that their manufacturers say they do."
An electric car is seen charging in February 2015. Image: Michael Flippo / AlamyMr Laverty said the range on his car was meant to be 37 miles (60 km) on electric alone.
"Every time I charged it up I was getting no more than 20, 23 and sometimes even less than that - sometimes I was getting just 19," he said.
"Honestly even from the start I just felt conned a little bit.
"I bought this car thinking I was getting 37 on the electricity side of things; not once did I get anywhere close to that.
"My car that I had was lovely, beautiful and quiet - it was a great car - but it's the infrastructure.
"It's not good enough for people to make the switch".
E-cars charged at charging stations, 27-9-20. Image: dpa picture alliance / AlamyMr Laverty said the absence of infrastructure is particularly felt in Northern Ireland.
"40% of the people here live in terraced houses [so] they're not gifted with the drives that they can plug in their cars there," he said.
"We used to have the free ESB chargers and I'm actually glad that we don't have them anymore.
"They were badly misused up here in the North.
"People were driving up to them, plugging their cars in and letting them sit there all day.
"In the 18 months I had that car... I didn't get charging my car once because there was always somebody there," he added.
EVs are vehicles that are either partially or fully powered on electric power.
EV ownership has doubled since the fourth quarter of 2019, according to the Central Statistics Office, with 3.2% of respondents stating that they own an electric vehicle, compared with 1.5% of respondents in 2019.
EV ownership in Dublin is twice that than in the rest of the country - 4.9% of persons residing in Dublin own an EV compared to 2.5% of those outside the capital.
