Sharing or privacy for private electric vehicle charging piles? Evidence from Chongqing

Private charging pile sharing (PCPS) is developing as a viable solution to the electric vehicle charging dilemma. However, few studies analyse the impact of the privacy paradox on PCPS schemes due to its prevalence in the sharing economy. Drawing on behavioural reasoning theory (BRT), we identify key constructs that influence the intention to participate in PCPS and reveal causal predictive links between them. Using a sample of 1005 potential private charger owners collected from Chongqing, China, we find that the desire to share and privacy concerns are two significant constructs, confirming the existence of a privacy paradox in PCPS. We also find that reasons for sharing and attitudes mediate the relationship between the desire to share and intention, whereas the relationship between privacy concerns and intention is mediated only by reasons against sharing. Herd mentality only moderates the relationship between reasons against sharing and intention, but not the relationship between reasons for sharing, attitude and intention. Moreover, we conducted a multi-group analysis on four variables: gender, age, education and monthly income, indicating a few heterogeneous effects. Our study contributes to the literature on PCPS by identifying the role of the reasons for and the reasons against participating in PCPS and by demonstrating the existence of the privacy paradox in the PCPS market. We also extend the BRT framework by identifying the moderating role of herd mentality between reasoning, attitudes and sharing intentions.