TY - JOUR
T1 - Willingness to pay and attitudinal preferences of Indian consumers for electric vehicles
AU - Bansal, Prateek
AU - Kumar, Rajeev Ranjan
AU - Raj, Alok
AU - Dubey, Subodh
AU - Graham, Daniel J.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Consumer preference elicitation is critical to devise effective policies for the diffusion of electric vehicles (EVs) in India. This study contributes to the EV demand literature in the Indian context by (a) analysing the EV attributes and attitudinal factors of Indian car buyers that determine consumers' preferences for EVs, (b) estimating Indian consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) to buy EVs with improved attributes, and c) quantifying how the reference dependence affects the WTP estimates. We adopt a hybrid choice modelling approach for this study. The results indicate that accounting for reference dependence provides more realistic WTP estimates than the standard utility estimation approach. Our results suggest that Indian consumers are willing to pay an additional US$10–34 in the purchase price to reduce the fast charging time by 1 min, US$7–40 to add a kilometre to the driving range of EVs at 200 km, and US$104–692 to save US$1 per 100 km in operating cost. These estimates and the effect of attitudes on the likelihood to adopt EVs provide insights about EV design, marketing strategies, and pro-EV policies (e.g., specialised lanes and reserved parking for EVs) to expedite the adoption of EVs in India.
AB - Consumer preference elicitation is critical to devise effective policies for the diffusion of electric vehicles (EVs) in India. This study contributes to the EV demand literature in the Indian context by (a) analysing the EV attributes and attitudinal factors of Indian car buyers that determine consumers' preferences for EVs, (b) estimating Indian consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) to buy EVs with improved attributes, and c) quantifying how the reference dependence affects the WTP estimates. We adopt a hybrid choice modelling approach for this study. The results indicate that accounting for reference dependence provides more realistic WTP estimates than the standard utility estimation approach. Our results suggest that Indian consumers are willing to pay an additional US$10–34 in the purchase price to reduce the fast charging time by 1 min, US$7–40 to add a kilometre to the driving range of EVs at 200 km, and US$104–692 to save US$1 per 100 km in operating cost. These estimates and the effect of attitudes on the likelihood to adopt EVs provide insights about EV design, marketing strategies, and pro-EV policies (e.g., specialised lanes and reserved parking for EVs) to expedite the adoption of EVs in India.
KW - Electric vehicle, Willingness to pay
KW - Hybrid choice model
KW - Indian consumers
KW - Reference dependence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85108118967&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105340
DO - 10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105340
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85108118967
VL - 100
SP - 1
EP - 16
JO - Energy Economics
JF - Energy Economics
SN - 0140-9883
M1 - 105340
ER -