In the backdrop of growing public concerns about climate change and air pollution, and the contribution of petroleum combustion in the transport sector to these issues, China has introduced a range of policy incentives for promoting the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs). These incentives have resulted in a rapid increase in EV stocks since the early 2010s, and this trend is expected to continue, or even accelerate, in the years to come, which would, in turn, lead to a policy-oriented EV market. The primary objective of the project is to develop an understanding of the effect of various policy incentives on EV uptake based on annual data of 43 cities from 2011 to 2017, and these policies mainly refer to those that focus on EV purchasing, registering, driving, and charging stages. The novelty of this paper is that we focused on policy effect on EV adoption behavior, rather than adoption intention which has widely been analyzed in previous studies. Results showed that the abolishment of purchasing and driving restriction, government subsidies, purchase tax exemption, and dedicated license plates significantly promote EV diffusion, and the effect of the two restrictions are more powerful. Thus, this study suggested that abolishment of purchasing and driving restrictions can be insisted to drive EV market share, meanwhile improving policies that can guide consumers through various motivations are also necessary.

In order to mitigate energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission in the transportation sector, countries around the world have generally adopted electric vehicles (EVs) as a new development direction of the automobile industry. Although the Chinese government has issued a series of incentive policies to promote EVs, the ownership of EVs is still insufficient due to low public purchasing enthusiasm. Thus, to better realize the promotion goal of EVs, public preference for EV incentive policies is worth investigating. Based on a large sample survey (N = 1039), this study investigated public preference for various incentive policies by using the conjoint analysis method. The results suggest that less than one third of consumers have a better understanding of the incentive policies, while more than half of the consumers know little about these policies. For consumers, the relative importance of different policy categories is ranked as follows: charging incentive policies, driving incentive policies, vehicle registering incentive policies, and purchasing incentive policies. As for different socio-demographic groups, consumers aged 26–30 years, with a monthly income higher than RMB 20,000, with high school, special secondary school, and masters (or above) educational levels regarded the relative importance of driving incentive policies as the highest; consumers from two-member families ranked purchasing incentive policies as the first one; consumers with a monthly income of RMB 15,001–20,000 and those from three-member families place registering incentive policies first; other consumers put charging incentive policies first. Based on the above results, this paper offers policy recommendations for improving consumer knowledge level of incentive policies as well as full consideration of their policy demands.

Social conformity, a psychological phenomenon commonly shared by most individuals, has long been ignored by studies focusing on influencing preferences for shared electric vehicles (SEVs). To fill this gap, this paper divides social conformity into informational conformity and normative conformity, and analyzes their effects on individuals’ choice of SEVs. Respondents were selected randomly in Jiangsu Province, and the data were collected by the choice experiment method. The data were further analyzed by logit models. Results show that social conformity has a significant positive impact on individuals’ choice of SEVs, and informational conformity has a much more profound impact than normative conformity. The driving cost and the convenience of picking up and returning a vehicle also influence consumers’ preferences. In addition, social conformity cannot totally dispel the negative impact of poor experience. Finally, some targeted policy recommendations are proposed.

The global automotive industry’ s rapid transformation has led to electric vehicles (EVs) capturing a significant market share as a sustainable transportation option. To sustain this growth, it is crucial to not only attract new users but also retain existing ones through repurchases. This decision is shaped by both vehicle attributes and users’ prior experiences. This study examines the impact of five dimensions of expected utility and experienced utility gap (including cost utility, functional utility, emotional utility, environmental utility, and social utility) on the repurchase intentions of 863 Chinese EV users. Discrete choice experiments were used to analyze these factors, considering both vehicle and personal attributes. The results show that when emotional utility exceeds expectations, users are more likely to repurchase pure electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. However, if environmental and social utilities fall short of expectations, users may be discouraged from choosing these two vehicle types. In contrast, decisions regarding gasoline vehicles are primarily driven by economic and habitual factors, with minimal influence from emotional, environmental, or social utilities. Additionally, EV users show a preference for medium-sized models that offer shorter charging times and longer driving ranges. These findings offer insights for enhancing consumer acceptance, accelerating EV market penetration, and supporting the automotive industry’s sustainable development, thereby contributing to the achievement of environmental sustainability goals.

Green consumption is widely promoted for its environmental benefits; however, it may also lead to unintended and even counterproductive ecological outcomes. Due to the altruistic social symbolism of green consumption and consumers' cognitive misunderstandings, promoting green consumption may trigger excessive consumption, a phenomenon often referred to as the green consumption trap. Based on the green consumption licensing effect (GCLE) and environmental cognitive bias (ECB), this study investigates the underlying mechanism of excessive consumption after green consumption, with a focus on the moderating role of pro-environmental self-identity (PESI). Using the data from scenario-based experiments, the analysis reveals that both GCLE and ECB increase the likelihood of excessive consumption after green consumption. PESI exacerbates the excessive consumption caused by GCLE and ECB. These findings highlight the importance of reducing the altruistic hints in green marketing, improving consumers' environmental cognitive capacity, and perfecting the policy incentive mechanism to mitigate excessive green consumption.