The Adoption Factors of Commercial Electric Vehicles: The Impact of Policy

Abstract

This thesis presents novel evidence on the factors that affect firm adoption of electric vehicles. In doing so, this thesis provides both theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature. These contributions add new insights to the limited but growing literature on electric vehicle adoption by businesses. This thesis consists of three journal-style research papers.

The first paper of this thesis analyses the factors that impact firm adoption of alternative fuel vehicles. In doing so, we develop a theoretical framework on Firm Adoption of Sustainable Technologies (FAST), by combining several technology adoption models with the attribute of ‘perceived risk’. Through FAST, we analyse 53 academic studies on firm adoption of alternative fuel vehicles. Our results show that the main enablers for firms to adopt are linked to efficiency, environmental, economic, and strategic gains. The main barriers to adoption are limited knowledge, organisational policies, as well as operational and economic factors.

The second paper examines the effect of UK financial purchase incentives on new registrations of electric fleets while moderating for gross domestic product (GDP) change. Our results show that financial purchase incentives positively impact new registrations of electric fleets, and this effect is positively moderated by GDP change. Marginal analysis reveals three categories of adopters that purchase electric fleets at different levels of policy and GDP change: insensitive adopters, standard adopters, and sensitive adopters. Overall, financial incentives are more effective in fostering the adoption of electric fleets when GDP change and financial purchase incentives are above their average level.

The third paper examines the effect of the mix of financial policy incentives on the adoption of electric vehicles by businesses in the UK. Specifically, we examine the instrument mix characteristics: consistency and comprehensiveness. Overall, our results show that consistency and comprehensiveness positively influence the adoption of commercial electric vehicles