Exploring Consumer Heterogeneity in Willingness to Pay for Electric V...

To contribute to the global targets for reduced carbon emission, electric vehicles (EVs) need to be powered with electricity produced by renewable energy sources (Bleijenberg and Egenhofer 2013). Consequently, a better grasp of EVs bundled with photovoltaic (PV) and battery storage (BS) systems is highly relevant for promoting the diffusion of EVs in individual transportation in a way that limits environmental damage.

However, consumer preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for such bundles have been limitedly researched. Our literature review points out two gaps in research, which we aim to address with this study. First, to date, research has covered only the impact of single add-on services and not how multiple product or service add-ons affect the preference for EVs (Hinz et al. 2015; Fojcik and Proff 2014). Cherubini et al. (2015) even called for research on EV product bundles, since they suggested bundling as one lever to increase EV adoption. Second, although several studies analyze the socio-demographic characteristics, psychological motives and experiences of EV lead users and potential EV adopters, to date there is no analysis of how potential EV adaptor characteristics and EV experiences can influence consumer preferences and their WTP for EV product bundles.

Hence, this paper has aims to advance our current understanding of such EV-PV-BS product bundles by investigating private individuals’ preferences and their WTP for such bundles. Further, our study aims to shed light on how customers’ assessing these values are influenced by socio-demographic and psychological variables, as well as by self-assessed EV experience.