Abstract
Emerging electric carsharing (EC) systems have demonstrated their advantages and attracted public attention. The number of EC systems is growing throughout the world, especially in metropolitan areas in developing countries. For successful implementation, developers need to understand the public acceptance of EC services. In this study, we sought to determine the factors that affect EC acceptance in the context of developing countries. The study involved 437 individuals, aged between 18 and 65 years, who were randomly sampled from an EC service area in China. The determinants of EC acceptance were investigated based on an extended version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and tested by using Structural Equation Modeling. The results indicated that hedonic motivation (HM) has a powerful effect on behavioral intention (BI) to use the EC service in the future. Performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), and familiarity with the carsharing concept (FM) also influenced EC’s acceptance. However, the impact of social influence (SI) did not emerge from this study. The results also revealed that gender moderates the effects of EE and FM on BI. Age moderated the effect of FM on BI and unexpectedly moderated the impact of HM on BI. The present study confirmed the validity of the UTAUT research model in predicting the intention to use an EC system in developing countries. Implications and recommendations for government and EC developers are also discussed.
Highlights
Nowadays, many metropolitan areas are implementing carsharing systems to manage urban mobility and traffic better
The properties of the measurement model were evaluated by testing the reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity
The chi-square statistic is too sensitive to sample size, which means that this test nearly rejects the model when large samples are used [91]
Summary
Many metropolitan areas are implementing carsharing systems to manage urban mobility and traffic better. More and more countries have considered using electric carsharing (EC) systems to achieve sustainable urban mobility. The use of EC services was limited for some time due to several technology-related reasons, such as the poor reliability of vehicles (e.g., the short lifetime of the battery) and a lack of charging points [7]. These disadvantages have led to a decrease in people’s acceptance of the EC service. Given that users’ acceptance is a fundamental factor in the development and success of a service, it is essential to understand the factors that determine the public acceptance of EC systems
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