Features of Chinese Government Policy to Stimulate Demand for Electric Vehicles: The Willingness of Car Owners

With the rapid development of China’s economy, the total number of cars and per capita ownership in China has also increased rapidly, and the environmental pollution caused by vehicle emissions has worsened. With the development of battery technology, the electric vehicle industry is also receiving more and more attention. The promotion of electric vehicles can effectively solve the environmental pollution caused by vehicle emissions, so the Chinese government has formulated a series of policies to promote the development of electric vehicles, through direct subsidies, tax breaks and other economic policies to stimulate consumer demand for electric vehicles. Consumer demand for electric vehicles is influenced by three main factors: social factors, product factors and personal factors. Government policies as a social factor will have a direct impact on consumers’ willingness to purchase electric vehicles, and different policies will have different impacts on consumers’ demand. In this paper, 138 valid questionnaires were collected through a questionnaire survey of Chinese car buyers, and the impact of three factors on consumer demand for electric vehicles was analyzed through a Probit model, focusing on the impact of different government policies on willingness to buy an electric vehicle. Through the analysis of the econometric model, we concluded that the subsidies policies have a positive effect on consumers’ willingness to purchase an electric vehicle, while the tax breaks policies do not show an effect on the consumers’ willingness to buy an electric vehicle. Besides the influence of policies, the results show that gender, education level and awareness of the environment also affect the consumers’ willingness. The attributes of the electric vehicle will decline the consumers’ willingness. Based on these results we give some suggestions that the Chinese government should formulate a systematic policy system; the Chinese government should implement a wider range of targeted supporting policies; the government should promote a series of campaigns to raise awareness of the importance of the environment.