Electric vehicles are on the rise, but are still far from reaching the global market share required to achieve climate objectives. While financial and technological adoption barriers are increasingly removed, psychological barriers remain insufficiently addressed on a large scale. Here, we show that car owners substantially underestimate the compatibility of available battery capacities with their individual mobility needs, increasing the demand of long battery ranges and reducing willingness to adopt. We test a simple behavioral intervention in two randomized online experiments in Germany and the U.S.: providing tailored compatibility information reduced range anxiety and increased willingness to pay for electric vehicles. Compatibility information more strongly increased preferences than information about privileged access to charging infrastructure, and selectively increased preferences of car owners for whom an electric vehicle would yield higher financial benefits. This scalable intervention may complement classical policy approaches in achieving a resource-conscious and global electrification of mobility.