•This study provides a new understanding of salient consumer risk and benefit beliefs when consumers face new technologies that represent a paradigm shift.•Findings suggest that technology firms need to develop new strategic marketing actions constantly.•Increasing an electric vehicle (EV) 's perceived benefits (vendor trustworthiness and expertise) and reducing consumer perceptions of risk is essential.•Beliefs of a manufacturer's expertise and trustworthiness were found to reduce consumer risk concerns. Consumers who decide to adopt complex, radically innovative products simultaneously can hold very different belief structures that, for example, capture concern for future losses, and beliefs of future gains, as well as the desire to coalesce with referents. This research develops a model of how consumers decide their next electrified vehicle. Based on the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and Risk-Benefit Models, the electric vehicle (EV) purchase decision is modeled as primarily based on beliefs of the perceived benefits and the perceived risks of technology adoption and social influences. Further, beliefs of a manufacturer's expertise and trustworthiness were found to reduce consumer risk concerns and strengthen consumer conviction that the benefits of technology were attainable. Structural equation modeling of survey data confirm the proposed consumer decision model, and our contention that technology adoption can be better understood by specifically exploring discordant consumer beliefs of the post-purchase consequences. The results of our research provide a new understanding of salient consumer risk and benefit beliefs when consumers face new technologies that represent a paradigm shift. Results also provide insight for technology firms that need to constantly develop new strategic marketing actions designed to increase demand for their complex technological products.