chapter 1

Abstract

Contemporary environmental concerns are thrusting the manufacturing and sales of Electric vehicles. Combination of Indian skilled and semiskilled technological base, a platform of large customer base, and relatively cheaper production and labor cost, has fascinated almost all global electric vehicle manufacturers and component suppliers,to start operations from India — Bosch, AVL and Cummins. To study Commercial success and purchase intention of electric vehicle by Indians, there is a need to study the factors influencing the consumer acceptance of these vehicles. Various factors that influence the purchase decision of car buyers are individual perception on dimensions like environmental issues, cost, trust, technology advancement, infrastructure, and society acceptance. The results shows that environmental concerns and consumer trust on technology are antecedent factor for perception about Electric vehicle purchase and the factors which give adoption blow back are cost, infrastructure, social acceptance. Thus to promote sales of electric vehicle government has to play a leading role by creating environmental policy, infrastructure andsubsidized cost of vehicle or lower the bank rate of interest rate.

Introduction

Contemporary environmental concerns are thrusting the manufacturing and sales of Electric vehicles. Year2018 have revolutionized the Indian manufacturer’sconception towards Electric Vehicle as best alternatives to the fuel cars (conventional diesel/petrol combustion engine). For example the Nissan Motors are developing 20 new models of EV and various Indian domestic players like Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, TVS Motors and Bajaj Auto are trying to strongly hold the leverage of high growth period of electric vehicles into theirstrategic competitive advantages in the market. This new emerging market has led to various strategic alliances (Tata Motors with Fiat, M&M with Ford and Renault, Bajaj Auto with Kawasaki, and TVS with Suzuki, Jaguar Land Rover by Tata Motors, Ssangyong by M&M, and KTM by Bajaj Auto).

Combination of Indian skilled and semiskilled technological base, a platform of large customer base, and relatively cheaper production and labor cost, has fascinated almost all global electric vehicle manufacturers and component suppliers ,to start operations from India — Bosch, AVL and Cummins being a few examples, and the result would give ****** to infrastructural development.To study Commercial success andpurchase intention of full electric vehicle by Indians, there is a need to study the factors influencing the consumer acceptance of these vehicles.Various factors that influence the purchase decision of car buyers are situation like regulatory environment, personal current psychological factors, like attitude, perception, and society acceptance and consideration levels.“Although some empirical studies of the consumer acceptance of hybrid vehicles have been conducted, there is little research that considers the perception of an expected situation; in particular, there has been little attention on the perception of full electric vehicles”.From Environmental perspective, increase in high CO2-emissions and depletion of Fossil reserves , the roll out of Electric vehicle can be perceived as a safety measure and future security(Neumann et al 2010).

Technology to be used in the upcoming EV is very mature and uptrend leading to high distance coverage with efficiency and comfort. (Class, Winter et al 2010). The potential of electric mobility has been studied in recentresearch from a technical (Werther, Frischknecht, labeye et al 2011) economic (Kley et al 2011), logistic (Ehrler et al 2012), environmental (Sourkounis et al 2011) andinner-urban (Schaumann, Solarat al 2013) point of view. However, research showed also that there isconsiderable struggle for electric vehicles to create appropriate markets , at leastPublic Perception and Acceptance of Electric Vehiclesin India. Changing is the trend from acceptance of fuel cars to EV requires a massive propagation and trust building on the electric Vehicle segment. Still,however, there is a strong negativity in acceptance of EV (Hiffman 2014).

The first parameter for strong push back in not accepting EV may be the experiences, comfort, safety and reliability on traditional fuel cars. And second Indian concept of avoiding risk and uncertainties for adoption of new technology .Thirdsocial reasons comes into being.

The study tries to correlate the EV purchasers’ psychological and situational factors, that effect the purchase intension of consumers regarding electric vehicles, and find relationship existing between them. The result draws a high influence from Government policies and promotions designed to promote electric vehicles to reduce carbon emissions from transport.

Review Of Literature : History repeats itself” a famous quote has been proved right, by powerful emergence of EV again in Indian transport industry. The use of electric vehicles was in life before 1918 but it almost completely vanished with the development of gasoline-powered internal combustion engine vehicles .These fuel led cars put the story of electric vehicle manufacturing on to a sleep mode. But year 2017 has again revived the story, with the concept of making EV for longer distance drives too and upliftment in a vehicle maintenance support system by Government. Technology perception and adoptions has two aspects first is the attribute of technology and second is of the adopter. In management perspective it can be explained through “innovation diffusion theory (IDT) (Rogers, 1962) and subsequent extensions (such as the TOE framework, Tornatzky and Fleischer, 1990).These relates to adoption of new technology based on usefulness (performance expectancy), ease of use (effort expectancy)Social influence and facilitating conditions(Venkatesh and Davis, 2000; Venkatesh et al., 2003)”. These parameters also play a very crucial role in adoption of Electric Vehicles.

There has been a considerable increase in research on EVs and adoption the last few years. In a recent study, Rezvani et al(2015) review work discusses the adoption of electric vehicles using various theoretical framework, he explained consumer EV adoption behavior from various theoretical perspectives like mix, planned and symbolic behavior. The maximum studies on EV adoption are revolving around technological, individual, social parameters. Axsen et al(2012)did a quantitative online survey based on lifestyle practice theory on 711 representative household in California, USA and found that adoption of this new technology of EV is based on Pro-environmental lifestyle, technology oriented lifestyle and Openness to change.

Burgessetal (2013) did a qualitative research on the adoption model of EV in 55 private drivers of UK, and found that major factors which leads to purchase are Technical ,Cost , individual and social factors.Caperollo and Kurani (2011) worked through rounded theory on 36 households in California, USA for 4-6 Weeks and found that the basic reason of non adoption of electric vehicles was confusion in how battery works, not finding appropriate charging stations nearby, avoidance of acceptance of new technology and driving habits.

Carley et al.(2013) did research on 2,302 individuals of USA with driving license and found that the adoption and perception varies based on education, gender, age, experience, environmental beliefs he explained that the various factors which steps down the purchase of EV as compared to traditional vehicles are the cost parameters, infrastructure non availability and recharging time. His study was based on Rational Choice Theory.Egbue and long (2012) did awareness survey on 481 students, staff and teachers of technical university regarding the acceptance level of new technology and found that the factors like environmental awareness, technology awareness, experience with EV and expectation about sustainability of EV plays a major role while buying an EV.

Graham –Roweet al (2012) based on his qualitative semi structured interview method studied 40 UKnon commercial and ICE drivers and found that the main force that relates purchasing intentions are environmental parameters, cost of vehicle, cost of fuel, battery material electricity source,performance, safety and the upgraded technology. The research done by Jensen et al (2013) on 369 Danish drivers explains that the acceptability of EV depend on hands on experience, purchase cost, fuel cost , driving range and driving speed of the EV.

Kupra et al (2014) gave new dimension to elaborating the research from Political scenario by studying 911 residents of USA. He found that the acceptance of EV would increase tremendously by having a political belief,concern for energy independence and climate change. He suggested that tax incentives can further enhance the sales.

Lane and Potter (2007) studied UK residents, consumers and potential consumers of Electric Vehicle based on theory of planned behavior and value-belief-norm theory He found that performance, ease of use, safety, reliability , energy efficiency of EV are the main contributors towards increased sale of EV. There was no relevant study that backed the perception and adoption process in Indian Consumers.

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