Consumer adoption of electric vehicles is essentially related to product quality factors, such as safety, performance and compatibility; however, the relationship between product quality standards and consumer behavior is not clear. Based on Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) and Prospect Theory, we distinguish claimed quality attributes, intrinsic quality attributes, measured quality attributes and perceived quality attributes and establish a conceptional model using System Dynamics (SD) simulation from the perspective of a Standard-Information-Behavior framework to explore the heterogeneous impacts of technical standards on consumers’ willingness to adopt electric vehicles. Based on the theory model and simulation, we try to explain the heterogeneous effects of three different standards: safety, performance and compatibility. We find that safety standards affect adoption through a market access mechanism, perceived performance of risk standards positively impacts customers’ perceived quality, and compatibility standards influence consumers’ perceived network value. The perceived risk, perceived quality and perceived network value influence consumer adoption willingness and behavior. The study contributes to the theory of innovation diffusion and consumer adoption behavior, and offers insights for standardizing activity, innovation diffusion and marketing product information for electric vehicles.

Electric vehicle cell industry is an emerging area with fierce competition on technical innovation, in which the patent holder can choose different innovation diffusion options to maximize the return; however, the strategy is unclear in certain scenarios. We tried to explain the question of how to maximize the patent holder’s return by appropriate patent license strategy to promote EV cell innovation diffusion, when competition and patent licensing relationship exist in the supply chain. A multistage and multichannel diffusion model of EV cell comprising the patent holder, EV cell producer and EV producers is developed; the evolutionary game is analyzed considering the competition among same stage players and patent licensing relationship among different stage players; and an optimization algorithm is introduced to find the maximum weighted object function of the patent holder. We established the multistage and multichannel diffusion model and found a nonlinear complex relationship between patent holder object function and the key factors including patent royalty pricing and innovation advantage coefficient; in addition, an optimization algorithm is developed based on adopters’ decision-making related with competition and patent licensing.

A patent pool strategy was proposed for use in the electric vehicle cell industry to manage patent licensing disputes and litigation. How to promote EV cell innovation diffusion under a patent pool scenario is unclear. We introduced an innovation diffusion channel model comprising different players with patent licensing relationships and market competition relationships following evolutionary game analysis and simulation. We found the interlinked factors that influenced evolutionary stable strategies with a sensitivity test on all factors to identify the important and unimportant factors. To achieve the maximum return for the players, an optimization algorithm was introduced to find the maximum weighted object function. The decision and policy makers could focus on important factors such as improving the technology’s competitive advantages, delivering more profits to its licensees with reasonable licensing fees, and finding the best patent pool strategy with the support of the optimization algorithm to balance the competition relationships and patent licensing relationships between players.

Standards are technical measures to regulate and promote sustainability. China National Standards for new energy vehicles (NEV) are developing at an increasing rate. We explored the functions and citation network the China national standards from a complex-network perspective. Different types of standards were clustered and citation relationships were identified based on standards’ document analyses. In this paper, the evolution of standard nodes and citation links are presented, and implications for future standardization work are proposed. In total, 114 existing standards were identified through desktop research and network analysis by using the Gephi ForceAtlas2 algorithm. This study can be helpful for future standardization in areas such as autonomous driving and carbon-related standards based on citation-network analysis.