Analysing consumer's perception comparatively on hybrid electric according to online comments

Abstract

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) are regarded as an available near-term green solution to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission in transportation sector, but they still do not play a dominant role in some auto market. In the view of consumer's perception, this paper investigates 1109 online comments to find out the reasons that cause large sale discrepancy. A framework including five aspects and nineteen factors is proposed, which help to analyse the consumer's perception on HEVs systematically. In addition, based on that framework, the difference on consumer's perception between China and America is investigated comparatively, which is also as a good case on HEVs for some other developing and developed countries. Finally, according to comparative result, three basic strategies, including cannikin strategy, suboptimum strategy and dominant strategy, are brought forward to boost the widespread adoption of HEVs in different markets.