For some, he said, range anxiety continues to be a barrier, but he believes that's "more an issue of education and experience, considering the range of the Niro EV is 239 miles."

As questions keep coming, Kia has turned to bots to educate consumers about its Niro lineup. Bots are online chat programs that use artificial intelligence to process and answer a shopper's questions.

Kia was the first automaker to use a chat bot through Facebook's Messenger platform, with the NiroBot, which presented shoppers with photos and descriptions of the Niro and a chance to get their questions answered in real time.

The brand followed that with Kian, a shopping assistant that addresses consumers about Kia's full lineup.

Kia also has teamed with Amazon on a program to provide its plug-in vehicle customers with one-stop shopping solutions for a home charging station.

"Amazon will deliver the hardware direct to a customer's home, and the customer can request assistance that will help them install it, too. This takes the guesswork out of buying and installing the charging station," Kosowski said in emailed statement. "If Kia can educate consumers in an easy-to-understand and non-intimidating way, then we have the most important aspect of the sales proposition right."

Providing clarity

Honda has run education efforts around its Clarity line for several years.

The brand, which wants electrified models to account for two-thirds of its worldwide vehicle sales by 2030, launched a national ad campaign for the Clarity plug-in hybrid in April 2018 that sought to dispel consumer fears of getting stranded.

Honda went with the instructional angle because its focus groups in places such as New York and Los Angeles showed that some consumers still didn't understand how plug-in hybrids work.

Some participants showed angst about getting stuck in rural areas when the electric battery runs out, while others said they didn't want to be bound by charging stations.

With misconceptions such as these, Honda said its marketing had to clearly communicate what owning a plug-in hybrid entails.

The Clarity spot opened with a simple declaration: "The end of your battery charge isn't the end of the world." Then the ad makes it clear that it "runs on electric, but has gas if you need it."

It's an odd position for a brand with a loyal customer base.

"We need to educate consumers first on what plug-in technology is, and then sell them on Honda," Susie Rossick, American Honda Motor Co.'s assistant vice president of marketing when the plug-in campaign launched, said at the time. "Education is a primary goal here. To do that, we wanted to do a campaign that wasn't gimmicky. We had to do something straightforward."