Urban households’ purchase intentions for pure electric vehicles under subsidy contexts in China: Do cost factors matter?

Subsidies are used to promote pure electric vehicle adoption. Whether cost factors are the dominant factors influencing households’ purchase intentions under subsidy contexts is unknown, which is meaningful as subsidies decrease. To explore whether cost factors influence Chinese urban households’ purchase intentions for electric vehicles under subsidy contexts, we conducted a questionnaire survey among Chinese urban households, which covers eight economic regions (or 30 provinces). We extended the theory of planned behaviour with the norm activation model as the theoretical framework and utilised a structural equation model to analyse these collected survey data. We built the van Westendorp price sensitivity model to measure urban households’ price preferences for pure electric vehicles. The results indicate that under subsidy contexts cost factors do not significantly influence urban households’ purchase intentions for pure electric vehicles in China, and people are more concerned about cruising power and charging-facility availability. Besides, subjective norms, feelings and emotions, personal norms, and perceived behavioural control affect urban households’ purchase intentions. Influencing factors vary from household groups with or without cars. Urban families’ acceptable price range for pure electric vehicles is CNY65,000 to CNY120,000.