How to accelerate the uptake of electric cars? Insights from a choice experiment

Abstract

Battery electric vehicles (BEV) are widely regarded as crucial to decarbonising the transport sector and achieving the Paris Agreement goals. Yet, there is much political controversy over how to accelerate the uptake of BEVs, which is currently still rather slow in most countries. The most important controversy concerns the extent to which consumer-oriented policy measures, such as purchase price subsidies, tax breaks and subsidised charging infrastructure are needed. Based on a large-scale (n = 1′021) choice experiment, we examined the relevance of a broad set of potential obstacles and drivers of BEV uptake from a consumer perspective. Obstacles include purchase price, energy costs, maintenance costs, warranty, and range. Potential policy measures for overcoming such obstacles include, e.g., free public transportation tickets and car exchanges, government subsidies, warranty periods, and charging infrastructure. Our main finding is that current key obstacles to BEV uptake are primarily economic and technical. It implies that disruptive measures such as banning fossil-fuel cars as well as supply-side policy interventions could help push the car industry into rapid technological innovation, and that economies of scale in BEV production may be more effective than governmental measures aimed at incentivising BEV uptake.