Identifying factors influencing electric vehicle adoption in an emerging market: The case of Thailand

Abstract

Electric vehicles (EVs) are considered a technological innovation that helps reduce not only fuel consumption but also air pollution and greenhouse gases that exacerbate global warming concerns. Despite these benefits, the understanding of factors influencing EV adoption remains obscure, as it varies greatly across countries and perspectives (e.g., the acceptance of EV technology, decisions to purchase and use EVs, and policies that affect user decisions to purchase and use EVs). To better comprehend the dominance of such factors — especially in an emerging market with a huge leap in EV usage, like Thailand — we devise a multi-perspective multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) framework and apply it to datasets of Thai EV users, including both general EV user and expert groups. Our results reveal that “Attitude Toward Using EVs” and “Subjective Norms” are crucial for the acceptance of EVs, while “Product and Service Attributes” and “Purchasing Incentive Policies” greatly impact the adoption decisions. Besides these factors, we also identify causal-effect relationships among factors in each of these three different perspectives. This research thus allows stakeholders — including EV manufacturers, transport authorities, and governments — to properly devise relevant mechanisms supporting countrywide EV adoption in a more sustainable fashion.