Encouraging Electric Vehicle Adoption Post COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Electric vehicles adoption in Malaysia is still in its infancy, and there are still relatively few electric automobiles on the road in Malaysia. There is a lack of knowledge and information among Malaysia's transportation policymakers together with the automakers and marketers in the country. There is a relatively limited and insufficient amount of information that is publicly disclosed about how effectively electric automobiles are accepted and adopted from the views of Malaysian customers. The objective of this study is to determine key factors that influence the willingness to adopt electric vehicles among Malaysians post COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, snowball sampling was employed to gather 200 responses from the central regions of Malaysia. Consent was obtained and filter question “Are you using electric vehicles currently? were asked before the respondents were invited to participate in this questionnaire. Snowball sampling was used in identifying respondents before respondents were approached face-to-face from March 2022 to September 2022. Descriptive and inferential statistics are used to analyze the 200 data. Range anxiety, charging infrastructure, purchase cost, environmental concern positively influences the willingness to adopt electric vehicles while social influence is not. Purchase cost has the strongest influence on willingness to adopt electric vehicles as compared with range anxiety and charging infrastructure. Malaysia is still at its infant stage of adopting and marketing for electric vehicles. This study examines key factors affecting consumers' adoption of electric vehicles.