Customer purchase intention toward new energy passenger vehicles: a case of China

Abstract

From 2009 to 2015, the sales of new energy passenger vehicles in China rapidly surged from 319 to 206,793 units, which recorded an increasing popularity of new energy vehicles. This study aims to investigate the effects of customer perceived value (price value, quality value, emotional value and social value), government policy and environmental consciousness on customer purchase intention toward new energy passenger vehicles in China. This study also intends to give suggestions to promote the new energy vehicle market as well as to increase the number of users. The data were collected using the snowball sampling and convenience samplingwith317 respondents from China and analyzed using ordinary least squares regression. The results demonstrated that customer purchase intention toward new energy passenger vehicles had a significantly positive relationship with price value, environmental consciousness, quality value and emotional value. Furthermore, the results proved that customer purchase intention did not have a significantly positive relationship with social value and government policy. Accordingly, the following suggestions were proposed: the Chinese government should support the technology research and development of vehicle manufacturers to reduce production costs and providea lower price for the new energy passenger vehicle; all kinds of media, environmental protection organizations, local communities, and the Chinese government should strengthen the promotion of environmental protection knowledge to increase customers’ environmental consciousness; vehicle manufacturers should devote more efforts to ensure the quality of the new energy passenger vehicle and the Chinese government should establish stringent production standards and quality inspection system; vehicle manufacturers should provide customers with more chances to test driving to give customers direct and true emotional feelings about driving the new energy passenger vehicle.