Psychosocial Traits Characterizing EV Adopters’ Profiles: The Case of Tenerife (Canary Islands)

Maria Gracia Rodríguez-Brito, Alfredo J. Ramírez-Díaz, Francisco Ramos-Real and Yannick Perez
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Maria Gracia Rodríguez-Brito: Departamento de Economía, Contabilidad y Finanzas, Universidad de La Laguna, 38200 Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
Alfredo J. Ramírez-Díaz: Departamento de Economía, Contabilidad y Finanzas, Centro de Estudios de Desigualdad Social y Gobernanza (CEDESOG), Universidad de La Laguna, 38200 Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-26

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyze Rogers-system categories of electric vehicle adopters in Tenerife (Canary Islands) to highlight the psychological factors defining each category. The paper runs a model to calculate willingness to change and willingness to pay for an electric vehicle following the contingent valuation methodology. A survey performed in Tenerife Island collected data from 444 private cars drivers. The survey contained a set of questions on psychological and car-features issues, as well as other items querying the socioeconomic factors and mobility characteristics of the drivers. This paper brings key contributions to the literature. First, it uses two theoretical frameworks to define the categories of innovators from a psychosocial standpoint. Second, the results will usefully inform both policymakers and automaker marketing departments on specific actions to accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles. Our results confirm that electric vehicle adopter categories are similar in proportion and characteristics to those of Rogers’ diffusion of innovation theory, and can be collapsed into two macro-groups of adopters distributed in a 50%–50% split in our sample, i.e., the earlier adopters and the later adopters.

Keywords: psychosocial traits; electric vehicles; early adopters; island regions; contingent valuation; willingness to pay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: Psychosocial Traits Characterizing EV Adopters’ Profiles: The Case of Tenerife (Canary Islands) (2018)
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