Electric vehicle adoption in license plate-controlled big cities: Evidence from Beijing

From 2015 to 2017, under the same nationally available subsidy, license plate-controlled big cities accounted for 49.3%-65.0% of electric vehicle (EV) adoption in China. This phenomenon cannot be solely explained by subsidy policy. In this paper, we assess the influences of license plate lottery and subsidy policies, together with other influential factors, on consumers' intention to purchase EVs. Based on a large sample of data collected in Beijing, we find that license plate lottery and subsidy policies are both among the most influential factors in promoting EVs in Beijing. In a certain sense, license plate lottery policy had a stronger influence than subsidy policy at the time of the study. Other significant influential factors include the consumer's annual household income, level of interest in EV news, vehicle performance, daily travel distance, and number of family cars (negative). The study presents possible implications for policy-makers and companies and discusses warnings about implementing license plate lottery policy.