Abstract

From 2009 to 2015, the sales of new energy passenger vehicles (NEV) in China rapidly surged from 319 to 206,793 units, showing an increasing popularity of NEV. 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 NEV in China. The data were collected using snowball sampling and convenience sampling with 317 respondents from China and analyzed using ordinary least squares regression. The results demonstrated that customer purchase intention toward NEV had a significant, positive relationship with price value, environmental consciousness, quality value, and emotional value. On the contrary, customer purchase intention does not show a significantly positive relationship with social value and government subsidy policy. Policy recommendations are proposed as follows for the Chinese government: support of technological research the and development of vehicle manufacturers to reduce production costs and provide a lower price for NEV; strengthening the promotion of environmental protection knowledge to increase customers’ environmental consciousness; and establishment of stringent production standards and quality inspection systems. In addition, vehicle manufacturers should devote more effort to ensure the quality of NEV. Lastly, vehicle manufacturers should provide customers with more chances to test drive the vehicles, which can give customers direct and true emotional feelings about driving NEV.