posted on 2019-03-28, 11:13authored byLixian Qian, Jose M. Grisolia, Didier Soopramanien
This research focuses on the effects of different types of service attributes and context-based
government policies, along with product attributes, on Chinese consumers’ adoption of
electric vehicles (EVs). Based on a stated choice experiment involving over 1,000
respondents in different cities of China, a mixed logit (MXL) model shows that typical
product attributes are consistently important for potential car buyers, but that charging service
has a mixed effect, depending on the level of service provision and speed. Specifically, the
availability of a home charging facility has the strongest influence on consumers’ choice to
purchase EVs, and the service speed of public fast service stations is also significant. In
relation to government policies, this study finds that in addition to government subsidy, free
licensing policy for EVs is very attractive for consumers, compared to the lottery-based
licensing for conventional petrol vehicles (PVs). We find that Chinese consumers have the
highest willingness to pay for obtaining a free vehicle license for EVs (106,144 RMB on
average) and being permitted to install a home charging post (91,039 RMB on average). Our
findings imply the importance of considering consumers’ perceived inconvenience associated
with using EVs compared to buying and using conventional PVs. Furthermore, policy makers
should consider the heterogeneous preference towards EVs when designing intervention
policies in the Chinese market.
Funding
This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71573213), Jiangsu Philosophy and Social Sciences Research Funding (Grant No. 2015SJD617), and the Research Development Fund of Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (RDF-13-02-15).
History
School
Business and Economics
Department
Business
Published in
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice
Volume
122
Pages
70 - 84
Citation
QIAN, L., GRISOLIA, J.M. and SOOPRAMANIEN, D., 2019. The impact of service and government-policy attributes on consumer preferences for electric vehicles in China. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 122, pp. 70 - 84.
This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2019.02.008.