Author(s): Chirag Malik and Sonali Yadav
The automotive industry in India needs a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions and energy consumption that pushes the industry, researchers, and policy-makers to focus on the spread in electrically driven plug-in Electric Vehicles (EVs). EVs are part of the environment friendly product group and are thus subject to all of the influences that inspire or discourage their adoption by the people. Therefore, the environmental attitude, environmental concern and other socio-psychological factors influence the formation of attitude towards EVs. The purpose of this paper was to examine the influence of these factors on consumer's attitude towards EVs which, according to Theory of Reasoned Action, further influence the adoption behaviour towards EVs. This paper also examines the moderating role of perceived economic benefit on the attitude and adoption of EVs relationship. Data were obtained from a survey of 402 individuals. The respondents were selected purposively based on their intention to buy a new car in the coming one year. A conceptual model was proposed to understand the relationship among various socio-psychological constructs and moderating role of perceived economic benefit. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were applied to analyse and test the hypothesised relationship among constructs including moderation effect. The results of the study reveal that social influence and has little influence on attitude towards EVs, while environmental concern, past green behaviour, awareness of EVs and consumer environmental attitude have a positive influence on attitude towards EVs. Moreover, perceived economic benefit moderated the relationship between attitude towards EVs and EV adoption behaviour. Further the comparison of results with previous researches has been discussed. Finally, we addressed the further scope of the study and management impacts.