The influences of incentive policy perceptions and consumer social attributes on battery electric vehicle purchase intentions

The global diffusion of battery electric vehicles (BEVs), a sustainable technological innovation, has been challenging, and thus, it has attracted a considerable amount of academic research interest. Previous studies have investigated the mechanism of government policies and consumer psychological factors, but they have neglected consumers' perceptions of incentive policies and consumer social attributes. Therefore, the current study integrates incentive policy perceptions and consumer social attributes into the research model. The model constructs a “perception-attitude-behavior” research framework for analyzing the influence of these factors on consumers' BEV attitudes and purchase intentions. The results of structural equation modeling analysis based on 261 potential buyers show the heterogeneity of the influence of consumers' perceptions of financial incentive policies, perceptions of information provision policies and perceptions of convenience policies on BEV attitudes and purchase intentions. In addition, three variables of consumer social attributes (environmental concerns, social norms, and face consciousness) are more influential than policy perceptions. BEV attitudes are the most important predictor of BEV purchase intentions. In addition, based on a multigroup test, a moderating effect of gender is found. Finally, this paper discusses theoretical and practical implications and future research.