Research On The Development Strategy Of Electric Vehicle Industry In China

New-energy vehicle industry, one of the most important emerging strategic industries, is severely related to national energy security, environmental protection and sustainable development, as well as the ownership of core technologies of auto industry. At the first stage, the demonstration and promotion of the plan, Ten Cities with Respective 1,000 EVs, developed slowly, and the total sales of electric vehicles was only about 13,000 sets by the end of 2014, which was less than one-fourth of the planned size. However electric vehicle production and sales has sharply increased in 2015 and the production and sales of the first 10 months has achieved 207,000 sets, so the total scale of nation-wide EVs has reached 338,500 sets. It is very hopeful to complete initial goals of 500,000 EVs set by Industry Plan, however it should be said that the whole EV industry of today is very limited with annual production and sales less than 1% that of traditional vehicles, and so there is still a severe challenge for the fulfillment of Industry Plan in the future.At present, the market supply of EV is far larger than the demand, and the shortage of demand is the real short-board for EV industry. A questionnaire research and analysis of consumer willingness on electric vehicles has been carried out recently and six factors affecting consumption of EVs have been summarized through factor analysis methods, which are price factor, policy factor, convenient factor, performance factor, environmental factor and cognitive factor. According to Maslow’s hierarchical theory of human motivation, the convenience factor is the most essential factor that affects daily usage of EVs and determines whether EVs can enter the consumer’s selecting scope and additionally price factor plays a vital role in determining the demanding size for electric vehicles. The policy factor works mainly through the price factor, and the performance factor can severely affects consumer’s willingness. At last the cognitive factor can strengthen the consumer’s recognition of national policies and strengthen the cognition of the environmental performance of electric vehicles,and so consequently encourage the electric vehicle industry’s development in demand.The above-mentioned six main factors affecting EV’s demand can be systematically improved by practical strategies, such as strengthening infrastructure constructions to improve convenience, using environmental incentives to eliminate economic externality, innovating business patterns to make up for EVs’ performance shortages, promoting demonstration and promotion to draw public attentions,strengthening publications of science & technology of EVs to enhance environmental awareness and taking flexible measures to implement policies, etc, so as to motivate consumer intentions and to develop market demand.Compared with the traditional auto industry, EV industry is still in its infancy stage, but through reasonable and practical industrial policies and development strategies, the EV industry of China is very promising to grasp core technologies of the auto industry in the next ten years, and to realize energy-saving and sustainable development. It is very hopeful that EV industry will become a new growth point in the future and play a more important role in the green national economy development.