The Development Strategies Of New Energy Vehicles Manufacturers By Considering Both Government Subsidies And Consumers’ Environmental Preferences

The development of new energy vehicles(NEV)has become an important way to save energy consumption and improve environmental performance.Currently,how to promote new energy vehicle manufacturers to further strengthen technological development,so as to improve the energy savings and emission reduction effects,i.e.,greenness of NEV,has become an urgent concern for China.However,the development of NEV is affected by many factors,among which government subsidies and consumers’ preferences are the main factors affecting the development of NEV.Numerous studies have investigated the government subsidy policy for NEV,and they often considered a fixed subsidy.However,China’s existing NEV subsidy(NEVS)policy shows that there is a subsidy threshold,that is,the level of greenness,such as fuel saving rate,or power consumption per hundred kilometers,meets the subsidy threshold.Only NEV whose green level meets the subsidy threshold,i.e.,high-green products can receive subsidies,but NEV whose green level does not meet the subsidy threshold,i.e.,low-green products cannot obtain subsidies.Therefore,the subsidy threshold may have a significant impact on manufacturers’ development decisions.In addition,since consumers are the ultimate purchasers of NEV,consumers’ environment preferences will significantly affect the sales and price of NEV,and ultimately greatly affect the decisions and profits of NEV manufacturers.Based on above analysis,this study aims to investigate the impact of NEVS policies especially the subsidy threshold and consumers’ environmental preferences on the development and cooperation strategies of NEV manufacturers.This study first investigates the product development strategy choices of non-cooperative NEV manufacturers in different supply chain structures,trying to answer the question that NEV manufacturers should develop high-green products or low-green products which can be seen from Chapters 3 to 5.Then,the optimal cooperative product development strategy for NEV manufacturers is investigated by comparing three cooperation ways,i.e.,not to cooperate,to cooperate with competing manufacturers,and to cooperate with upstream supplier which can be seen in Chapter 6.This research is expected to provide reference value for the selection of product development and cooperation strategies for new energy automobile manufacturers,and the policies design for the government.The main research contents and conclusions of this paper are summarized as follows:Firstly,a supply chain structure,i.e.,vertical structure which is composed of a supplier and a NEV manufacturer is considered,and a two-level programming game model is established.The results show that: 1)when the subsidy threshold is low,NEV manufacturers will develop high-green products,because of which the profit of NEV manufacturers can be increased.2)Consumers’ environment preferences will increase the willingness of NEV manufacturers to develop high-green products.3)Compared with the non-NEVS policy,the NEVS policy will reduce the negative environmental impact,i.e.,energy consumption of the product when the subsidy threshold is low and consumers have no or low environmental preference.4)When the subsidy threshold is large,the NEVS policy will not affect the decision-making of supply chain companies including suppliers and the NEV manufacturer.Then,a supply chain structure,i.e.,horizontal structure which is composed of two symmetrical NEV manufacturers is considered,and a game model of duopoly competition is established.Results tell that: 1)when the subsidy threshold is low,manufacturers will choose to develop high-green products.However,compared with the horizontal structure,the hybrid structure will reduce the willingness of manufacturers to develop high-green products.2)If consumers have no or weak environmental preferences,the NEVS policy will put competing NEV manufacturers into a prisoner’s dilemma,in which the Pareto optimal decision is that both two NEV manufacturers develop low-green products,but two NEV manufacturers will choose to develop high-green products in equilibrium.3)If government implements the NEVS policy,consumers’ strong environmental preferences will make it easier for NEV manufacturers to fall into a prisoner’s dilemma.4)Compared with no NEVS policy,the NEVS policy will increase the profits of NEV manufacturers and reduce the impact of products on the environment if the subsidy threshold is low and consumers have no or low environmental preference.In addition,a supply chain structure,i.e.,hybrid structure which is composed of one supplier and two symmetrical manufacturers is considered,and a two-level programming game model is established.The results show that: 1)the product development strategy of NEV manufacturers under government subsidies depends on the subsidy threshold;that is,they will choose to make the same investment decisions when the subsidy threshold is low or large,but make the opposite investment decisions when the subsidy threshold is intermediate.2)The NEVS policy can increase the profits of the two manufacturers and reduce products’ environmental impact simultaneously when the subsidy threshold is low and consumers have no environmental preference.When the subsidy threshold is moderate,however,both manufacturers will suffer from profit loss since they will fall into a prisoner’s dilemma.3)Numerical simulation shows that the increase in consumers’ environmental preferences will make manufacturers more likely to fall into a prisoner’s dilemma.At the same time,as consumers’ environmental preferences increase,the NEVS policy are more likely to reduce manufacturers’ profits and increase the environmental impacts of products.Finally,the cooperative product development strategy of NEV manufacturers under the hybrid structure is investigated.This chapter focuses on the analysis of two types of manufacturers,namely,those who have not received government subsidies,i.e.,L-type manufacturers and those who have received government subsidies,i.e.,H-type manufacturers.For the two types of manufacturers,three two-tier planning game models of different cooperation modes,i.e.,non-cooperation,cooperation with competing manufacturers i.e.,horizontal cooperation,and cooperation with upstream supplier i.e.,vertical cooperation are developed.The study found that: 1)L-type manufacturers will always reduce product greenness when they cooperate horizontally,but H-type manufacturers may increase product greenness when they cooperate horizontally.2)Compared with non-cooperation,both vertical cooperation and horizontal cooperation can increase manufacturers’ profits.3)Horizontal cooperation between manufacturers will reduce the negative environmental impact of products,while vertical cooperation between manufacturers will increase the negative environmental impact of products.4)The manufacturer’s optimal cooperative product development strategy is related to the type of manufacturer,the manufacturer’s surplus profit sharing ratio in cooperation,and the subsidy threshold.Numerical analysis shows that when the manufacturer’s surplus profit sharing ratio in the vertical alliance is moderate and the subsidy threshold is high,the optimal cooperative product development strategy of L-type manufacturers is to choose vertical cooperative product development strategy,while the optimal cooperative product development strategy of H-type manufacturers is to choose horizontal cooperative product development strategy.