Why Some EV Passengers Report Severe Motion Sickness

Lola Baird made it forty minutes into a drive before asking her boyfriend to pull over. The nausea had become unbearable, and she found herself sick on the ground beside his car. She was twenty-four, from north London, and had never experienced motion sickness until he bought an electric vehicle two years ago. Now long journeys left her feeling severely nauseous. The problem has grown so acute she's asked him to change cars entirely.

She is not the only one. When BBC News asked around, other passengers reported the same pattern: sitting in an electric vehicle as a traveler triggered motion sickness far worse than in traditional cars. Mark Quigg, forty-five, from Lincolnshire, bought an EV last year for its lower running costs. He found the car wonderful to drive—until he noticed his nine-year-old daughter's motion sickness worsened dramatically. She used to feel sick only on their six-hundred-mile drives to France during school holidays. Now a thirty-minute trip to the nearest city makes her unwell. On one recent journey, she vomited for the first time ever. Lucinda Harrison, twenty-four, from London, books taxis that turn out to be electric vehicles and dreads the experience. Even a five-minute lift from a colleague to a Tube station leaves her feeling horrific, sweaty, and clammy.

Yet the picture is complicated. Many EV owners told BBC News they and their families experience no motion sickness in electric vehicles. Some said they felt less sick in them compared with traditional combustion cars. Vicky Edmonds, CEO of EVA England, an association for electric vehicle drivers, said the issue has never surfaced among her members. But the Chinese EV maker XPeng, which operates showrooms across the UK, has publicly acknowledged the concern, telling customers that the link between electric vehicles and travel sickness is real and "not your imagination." The company attributed it to "side effects of how electric cars are engineered."

Dr. Nicholas Hac, a neurologist at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago who specializes in dizziness and vertigo, hears about this regularly from patients. About two a month specifically mention motion sickness in electric vehicles. "I've heard about it many, many, many times," he says. Dr. Irene Di Giulio, senior lecturer in anatomy and biomechanics at King's College London, whose research includes motion sickness, says studies so far suggest some passengers do experience more severe motion sickness in electric vehicles than in conventional ones. But Dr. Bill Yates, who has researched motion sickness at the University of Pittsburgh, cautions that the research remains thin. "There's some anecdotal information, but not a lot of really serious, extensive studies done yet," he says.

Motion sickness arises from a mismatch in sensory signals. The body relies on three main inputs to sense movement: what the eyes see, what the inner ear's balance system perceives, and what the body's sensory fibers detect. When these conflict—like looking at a phone instead of watching the road—nausea results. Electric vehicles may trigger this mismatch in several ways. Humans have adapted to associate engine sound and vibration with acceleration. Electric vehicles lack these auditory and tactile cues, which could confuse the body's sense of motion. Regenerative braking, the process where releasing the accelerator slows the car and feeds energy back to the battery, can create harsh deceleration if done abruptly. "It forces the person to perhaps feel like they're rocking back and forth for that brief moment when the speed of the car suddenly changes," Hac explains. Carolyn Le, twenty-four, from California, experiences this acutely. She gets "horrendous" motion sickness when her friend drives her in his electric vehicle through busy cities, where regenerative braking "constantly feels like the car is stopping all the time." Electric vehicles can also accelerate and decelerate much faster than conventional cars, which Di Giulio says can trigger motion sickness. Vicky Edmonds counters that recent developments in EV design have improved acceleration moderation, and suggests other factors like driving style may be responsible.

Genetics play the largest role in motion sickness susceptibility. Women and children are more prone to it. Motion sickness typically peaks between ages eight and ten, then decreases with exposure. As EV adoption accelerates, avoidance becomes harder. The number of new zero-emission cars registered in the UK rose 40.5 percent between April and June 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. By the end of June 2026, 5.8 percent of all licensed cars on UK roads were zero-emission vehicles. The sale of new petrol and diesel cars is set to be banned from 2030.

Academics offer practical steps to reduce motion sickness: look out the front window rather than at a phone, sit in the front passenger seat if possible, keep your head still against the headrest, recline your seat, regulate breathing, and open a window for fresh air. Travel sickness tablets help, though they can cause drowsiness. Before long journeys, stay hydrated, sleep well, and eat non-greasy food. Exposure helps too. The more journeys passengers take in electric vehicles, the less likely they are to become motion sick as their body adjusts. Carmakers can also intervene. Professor Cyriel Diels, professor of mobility design at the Royal College of Art, suggests software that smooths rapid acceleration, sound systems and subtle seat vibrations to signal movement, and adaptive regenerative braking that reduces sudden deceleration. Matt Adams from BEAMA, which represents UK manufacturers of EV charge points, expressed confidence that "if future research identifies the reason for car sickness that vehicle manufacturers can respond and improve accordingly." For Lola, though, the solution is simpler: she wants her boyfriend to trade in his car.