What Influences Chinese Consumers’ Adoption of Battery Electric Vehicles? A Preliminary Study Based on Factor Analysis

Abstract

The rapid development of automobile industry in China did improve people’s quality of life. However, it has also damaged the ecological environment. The emission of a large amount of automobiles is one of the serious air pollution sources. In recent years, the shortage of petrochemical energy, the rapid rise of harmful particles in the air (e.g., PM2.5 and PM10), and the increasing worse atmospheric environment are becoming obstacles to China’s sustainable development. Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are recognized as an ideal alternative to conventional cars. This study aims to explore the factors that can promote consumers’ adoption of BEVs and to construct domains of these factors. Firstly, an open web questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were conducted to widely collect factors that promote consumers’ purchase of BEVs. Then, questionnaire survey and exploratory factor analysis were used to construct domains of promoting consumers’ purchasing willingness. A total of six factors that promote consumers’ adoption of BEVs were obtained. Finally, the research results can provide references for the Chinese government and the BEV manufacturers in the development and promotion of EVs.

How to Promote Online Education through Educational Software—An Analytical Study of Factor Analysis and Structural Equation Modeling with Chinese Users as an Example

“…A total of 356 questionnaires were collected, with invalid questionnaires such as those with a short answer time, duplicate answers filled in, missing answers and so on being deleted, and 328 valid questionnaires were left. There was a response rate of 92 percent for the surveys, and the sample size was sufficient for the factor analysis [65][66][67][68][69]. In total, 31.5 percent of the responders were men, while 68.5 percent of them were women.…”

A Systematic Literature Review on Vehicle-Purchasing Behaviour

“…Dos Santos et al (2021), through the artificial neural network (ANN) model, discovered that the higher the purchase price of an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle, the higher probability that the consumers will opt for an electric vehicle (EV) instead. The findings of Wei et al (2020) revealed that the preference of purchasing a vehicle differs between drivers and nondrivers of the selected vehicle. Respondents who own and drive electric cars believe that purchasing cost is the main factor when buying a vehicle rather than the one who is not.…”

“…Therefore, the various sources of use restriction (e.g., small fuel tank, driving range and charging point's availability) are important to explore as they potentially affect consumers' preferences. Wei et al (2020) examined the vehicles' characteristics based on demographic analysis and discovered that gender factor significantly differentiates the choice of BEV design and battery capacity. Unlike other car owners, the ones who own BEV agreed that attributes of the vehicles significantly affect their purchasing behavior.…”

“…The pro-environmental consumer considers green vehicles as a cleaner alternative than vehicles powered by fossil fuels. In China, it is acknowledged that people who have bought BEV has a strong sense of environmental protection awareness (Wei et al, 2020). Research by De Luca and Di Pace (2020) investigates the attitudinal factors that affect the user's choice and reveals that the attitude towards the environment is statistically significant.…”

What Increases Consumers’ Purchase Intention of Battery Electric Vehicles from Chinese Electric Vehicle Start-Ups? Taking NIO as an Example

“…Due to rapid economic development and urbanization, China has become the largest automobile market in the world, with an average growth rate of 17.5% since 2000 [1]. The rapid development of China's automobile industry has indeed improved people's quality of life, but it has also destroyed the ecological environment [2]. In 1990, there were only 800,000 private cars in China, while in 2007, the total number of private cars reached 28.8 million and the stock of private cars increased by about 36-fold [3].…”