A longitudinal analysis of user acceptance of electric car-sharing services

Electric car-sharing services (ECS), which have been expected to address the negative externalities of owning and using private cars, remain relatively small in the mobility market. Existing research on ECS adoption has relied on cross-sectional designs and models. This study marks the first longitudinal extension of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to analyze the dynamic process of ECS adoption. With a two-wave online panel survey, results from autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation modeling confirm that psychological factors and behavioral intention to adopt ECS show stable autoregressive effects. It is found that the behavioral intention established earlier significantly strengthens psychological factors afterwards, revealing a feedback mechanism and cross-lagged effects. The relative importance of social influence grows over time and ultimately surpasses performance expectancy, reflecting a shift in the power of the influencing factors. These findings demonstrate the value of longitudinal perspectives in adoption research. The extended model also reveals a critical role of attitudes toward sharing, innovativeness, and mobility-related factors. Policymakers and ECS operators are recommended to continuously monitor user motivations and apply dynamic adjustments to strategies to promote durable shifts toward on-demand and climate-neutral mobility.