Purchase intention of Autonomous vehicles and industrial Policies: Evidence from a national survey in China

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In recent years, governments have successively introduced a variety of policies to promote the development of the autonomous vehicle (AV) industry and technology. Existing research sheds light on individuals’ decision process regarding their willingness to purchase AVs or legislation and policy design from the perspective of policymakers, regulators and experts. Little research has been conducted to explore what incentive policies consumers demand and how the policies affect their purchase intentions. In this study, a decision model of AV purchase intentions is proposed through a combination of the planned risk information seeking model (PRISM) and innovation diffusion theory (IDT), and the decision model is utilized to explore the mechanism of the influence of incentive policies on purchase intentions. The early stage of AV commercialization is the research background, and potential AV consumers are the research object. A national survey was conducted in China, and the empirical results indicate that consumers show higher risk perceptions of AVs and that they are most concerned about the unclear risk involved after the occurrence of traffic accidents by unattended cars. The perceived attractiveness of policies such as tax subsidy policies, insurance policies, and commute policies are all significantly and positively correlated with purchase intentions toward AVs. Rational industrial policies have significant effects on mitigating consumer risk perceptions and stimulating purchasing intentions.