The importance of consumer motives for green mobility: A multi-modal perspective

While most consumers agree that adopting more sustainable mobility behaviors should be a priority, this attitude often fails to translate into actual behavior. We argue that this is because sustainable mobility products do not sufficiently satisfy consumer mobility motives. To investigate this issue from a multi-modal perspective, we first synthesized previous research into a general measure of superordinate consumer motives in the mobility domain. We then conducted a representative survey experiment in which potential mobility consumers (N = 504) reported their mobility motives and their purchase intentions for a diverse set of mobility products including electric vehicles, hybrid-electric vehicles, efficient fuel cars, electric bikes, annual public transport tickets and sport utility vehicles. In line with our expectations, mobility motives substantially contributed to explaining all purchase intentions on top of demographic variables and prior ownership. While environmental motives were the most important predictor, also status, financial, independence, safety and hedonic motives contributed substantially to the prediction of mobility purchase intentions. We discuss the importance of consumer motives as a basis for marketing and policy measures, to effectively promote sustainable mobility alternatives during the rise of multi-modal mobility.