Registered Design for Survey Experiment: Decision Behaviour when Purchasing Electric Vehicles

The purchase of electric vehicles (EV) has so far been studied almost exclusively based on descrip-tive statistics and correlations. Various studies examine the effects of socio-demographic factors and socio-psychological variables such as environmental and technological attitudes on purchasing. Such results allow to gain insights into the barriers that affect decision-making behavior and are most likely to hinder EV uptake. In addition, we want to assess how the decision-making process of potential EV buyers looks like and how much knowledge about EVs these buyers have. This allows us to identify potential policy incentives that could increase the market share of EVs. To do so, we plan to conduct survey experiments among a random sample of 10’000 residents aged ≥18 in the canton of Zurich. In these experiments, we will determine how potential buyers of EV react to vari-ous measures that attempt to reduce barriers of EV uptake. Such barriers include high purchase price, uncertainties regarding the resale value (depreciation), range anxiety and the lack of charging infrastructure. The results of the survey experiments will indicate how certain measures taken by the private and public sectors to address these barriers could affect the decision-making process to buy an EV.