Head to a Ford dealership and ask about an F-150. You will be shown its features, invited on a test drive, and treated to a carefully practiced sales pitch detailing the truck’s strength, power, and durability. Ask about an electric car, and you might have a very different experience. Experts and advocates have consistently found dealers and manufacturers putting as little effort as possible into selling electric cars.

In 2016, the Sierra Club sent volunteers to more than 300 dealerships around the country to record their experience shopping for an electric vehicle. The results were dismaying, to say the least. More than 1 in 5 Ford and Chevy dealers had failed to charge an EV so it could be taken for a test drive. Only around half of salespeople explained how to fuel a plug-in vehicle, and only a third discussed the tax credits available to buyers. “The dealership had no idea about the state and federal tax credits,” said a volunteer in California. “They said it was the policy of the company to not talk about tax incentives because they were not tax experts.”

Many volunteers described dealers who were woefully incompetent or, in some cases, openly hostile to EVs. “Senior sales staff had no idea what the battery electric vehicles’ range was. He called it a go-cart,” said a volunteer in New York. “There were no EVs in stock, and [the dealer] stated that he has no interest in ever selling an electric vehicle,” said another in Maine. “I couldn’t do a test drive because the key was lost. I was encouraged to purchase a non-electric vehicle instead,” said another in Connecticut. If dealers are reluctant to sell EVs, that has an impact on consumers. Studies show that drivers are more likely to buy an electric car after they take one for a spin.

Dealers may be reluctant to sell EVs because, like most Americans, they don’t know much about them. “A lot of our salesmen are not familiar with electric vehicles themselves, and so rather than try to sell people something they don’t know or don’t feel comfortable with, they’re trying to sell them something else,” said David Greene, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Tennessee.

A 2014 study found that drivers shopping for an EV were much less satisfied with their experience than those who were shopping for a conventional car. Those shopping for a luxury car showed the greatest satisfaction–the more money the dealer believed he stood to make from a sale, the more satisfied the customer was with her shopping experience. Notably, Tesla buyers were the most satisfied of all.

Researchers further explained that EVs need less maintenance than conventional cars, which puts a dent in the dealer’s bottom line. “I got my [BMW] i3 in April of last year, so I have had it for a year and a half, let’s say, and I’m not due for my first maintenance until January,” Greene said, explaining that because EVs generate so little money after they are sold, salespeople are less inclined to move them off the lot. “Dealerships make a very large fraction, if not most of their money from maintenance and repairs,” he said.

It’s not just dealers who are failing to sell EVs. Manufacturers spend appallingly little on marketing plug-in cars. A study commissioned by the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management found that U.S. automakers are investing next to nothing on advertising electric cars such as the Ford C-Max Energi and Chevy Bolt. In 2017, manufacturers spent roughly an order of magnitude more nationally marketing SUVs and trucks, like the Chevy Silverado and Ford F-150. “Here in Tennessee, you will rarely see an electric car advertisement on television,” Greene said. “They just don’t get advertised the way other vehicles get advertised.”