Evaluation of incentive policies for electric vehicles: An experimental study on Jeju Island

In Korea, electric vehicles (EVs) are considered as a potential solution for counteracting environmental issues that have arisen due to vehicles with internal combustion engine. Therefore, a multitude of incentives have been offered to the consumers but the effectiveness of those incentives varied due to diverse consumer perceptions on various incentives. To evaluate consumer behavior toward the incentives for EVs, this study performed stated preference experiments of actual EV owners. The experiments showed that, compared with the potential consumers, actual EV owners exhibited a greater inconvenience to charging time. For the incentives, EV owners showed different preferences to the different incentive measures. Especially, they have far greater preference for subsidies during their ownership period, such as discounts to the electricity charging rate and operation subsidies, than for those at the time of purchase, such as purchase subsidies and charger installation. These findings suggest that it would be more effective to formulate an incentive policy that reflects diverse consumer behavior toward EV incentive measures.