Understanding user representations, a new development path for supporting Smart City policy: Evaluation of the electric car use in Lorraine Region

Today electric car and Smart Grid are potential elements of any ‘Smart City’ initiative. According to several recent studies, French citizens are ready to purchase an electric car. Despite of these positive figures, sales of the electric cars are not really taking-off, but slightly increasing. Although, previous studies have identified motivation and barriers for the diffusion of electric cars (EC), we hypothesise, that the analysis of the a priori knowledge of the actors, in particular the users, can be enriched and it will provide a new understanding of the spread of EC. However, there is no studies explaining the types of representations people have of the EC, particularly for non-users, in order to have a better consideration of individuals, not so much as consumers or users, but rather as citizens. Thus, this paper explores the determining factors that determine how social groups perceive the emerging technology of EC and thus provide elements about a potential acceptability enabling its dissemination. In order to achieve this, this paper proposes a new approach based on the use of the AttrakDiff-2 questionnaire, a specific User eXperience (UX) method. This method assesses four different but complementary aspects of the social representation: the possibility of action of the subject on the system; the stimulation, caused, by the system; how the user will identify with the system and, the overall attraction. Data about the social representations of electric car for 131 potential users in the Lorraine Region of France were collected and analysed. Results show that there are differences of user representation regarding the socio-demographic variables. The proposed approach will provide relevant inputs to the infrastructure network design and Smart City policy decision makers.