Study On Configuration Schemes To Promote Chinese Consumers’ Intentions To Buy New Energy Vehicles

At present,the energy consumption and exhaust emissions brought by the transportation sector are increasing.In order to alleviate the environmental pollution problem,there is an urgent need for electrified conversion of vehicles.As the largest market of NEVs in the world,the Chinese government has issued many policies to promote NEVs.However,the market share of NEVs is still very low.Therefore,it is necessary to analyze and evaluate the NEV policies implemented in China,and further explore the effective plans to promote consumers’ intentions to buy NEVs.This paper first collected NEV policies issued by local governments at all levels in China from 2010 to 2019,and then analyzed and evaluated NEV policies for consumers.This paper finds that there are many problems in Chinese NEV policies,such as the insignificant effect of policy incentives,the singleness of policy instruments the lack of pertinence.In particular,past studies mainly focused on analyzing the individual effects of policy factors and psychological factors on consumers,and there are few studies on how the combination of the two factors together affect consumers’ NEV purchase intentions.To fill this gap,this paper draw on the configurational theory to develop a research framework by integrating three psychological factors(i.e.,attitude,subjective norms,and perceived behavioral control)and four policy factors(i.e.,purchase subsidies,license plate control,preferential usage,and preferential driving).This build a paired dataset with both qualitative and quantitative data.Using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis(fs QCA)approach,the empirical results from China reveal that configuration schemes that lead to high NEV purchase intention always include at least one psychological factor.In contrast,even if a government has implemented purchase subsidies,the joint absences of attitude,subjective norms,and perceived behavioral control lead to low NEV purchase intention.This paper also provides interesting insights into different sociodemographic characteristics.Through a new theoretical perspective,this paper reveals configuration schemes to promote consumers’ intentions to buy NEVs,and contributes to the literature on the adoption behavior of NEVs.In addition,the findings of this paper provide some managerial implications for Chinese government to formulate policies and enterprises to formulate marketing strategies in the future.When making policies in the future,the Chinese government should pay more attention to how to improve the psychological factors of consumers.NEV enterprises should also actively cooperate with the government to help consumers form a positive psychological stance on NEVs.In addition,the government and enterprises should take into account the characteristics of different consumer groups to formulate more targeted policies and marketing programs.This paper also provides some alternatives to subsidy policy for government.