Consumer-Oriented Policy towards Diffusion of Electric Vehicles: City-Level Evidence from China

Guoqiang Zhang,Yanmei Xu,Juan Zhang

doi:10.3390/su8121343

Abstract

Public policy is crucial for the diffusion of green innovation, and debates exist about the effects of different policies. This paper explores appropriate types of policy instruments by explaining the quick rise in sales of electric vehicles (EVs) in China. Based on a three-year longitudinal dataset across 88 cities, the study shows that consumer-oriented policies are able to significantly promote EV diffusion. Consumer-oriented policies target consumers to facilitate their usage of cars and lower the lifecycle cost, and typical examples include electricity charging and traffic management. This paper contributes to the literature of clean technology policy in two ways. Firstly, it reveals and empirically tests the importance of consumer-oriented policy instruments for the deployment of green innovation. Secondly, it is one of very few scholarly works offering a detailed review of city-level policies in China’s EV industry, which will be useful for scholars who are also interested in similar topics.

Highlights

It is an essential trend in the world today to drive the transition towards sustainability of the economic society through green innovation covering renewable energy, electric vehicles (EVs), wastewater treatment, gas turbines, etc
Our findings demonstrate that producer-oriented policies cannot necessarily promote EV diffusion, but that consumer-oriented policies, e.g., no restriction on the car plate number, price rebates of electricity charging, and public campaigns, work quite positively and effectively
Chinese EV deployment policies are composed of two levels, at both the central government and pilot cities

Summary

Introduction

It is an essential trend in the world today to drive the transition towards sustainability of the economic society through green innovation covering renewable energy, electric vehicles (EVs), wastewater treatment, gas turbines, etc. Due to problems of green innovation, such as high costs of investment, long payback periods, high uncertainty in technology and the market, insufficient infrastructure, and negative impacts on incumbents [1], governments must design effective public policies to promote the diffusion of green innovations. This paper targets the types of policy instruments that can effectively promote green technology diffusion with the case of China’s EV deployment action. Since the beginning of 2014, there came a sudden explosion in the purchase of passenger cars, with a sales volume up to 189,000 in 2015, ranking number one globally, and accounting for over 30% of the global total [3,4]. The share of EVs in the entire passenger vehicle market of China rose from 0.03% in 2013 to 0.90% in 2015 [5]. What policy instruments has the government adopted in order to stimulate the sale of EVs?

Methods

Results

Conclusion