Smart electric vehicle purchase intentions: Interplay between consumer innovativeness and product intelligence

Abstract

Smart electric vehicles (EVs) have garnered significant attention recently as an increasing number of automakers shift their focus from traditional product metrics to product intelligence. Leveraging the lens of innovation diffusion theory, we examine the combined effects of consumer innovativeness and product intelligence on the purchase intentions of smart EVs. Using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of survey data from 416 Chinese consumers, we identify three consumer types. The first type consists of social consumers who exhibit high levels of social innovativeness and prioritize ability to learn, humanlike interaction, and personality. The second type consists of hedonist consumers, who are primarily concerned with the experiential and emotional benefits of products and demonstrate a preference for products with high cooperation ability and reactivity. The third type consists of general consumers, who do not exhibit a significant inclination toward either social or hedonist innovativeness but still demonstrate clear preferences across all five dimensions of product intelligence. We also analyze the impact of various demographic characteristics on our findings. Our study contributes to the existing EV adoption research and practice by emphasizing the importance of the interplay between consumer innovativeness and product intelligence.