Materialism, Ecological Consciousness and Purchasing Intention of Electric Vehicles: An Empirical Analysis among Chinese Consumers

• Main Authors: Dongming Wu, Liukai Yu, Qianqian Zhang, Yangyang Jiao, Yuhe Wu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-03-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: electric vehicle; purchase intention; materialism; ecological consciousness; resistance
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/5/2964

Electric vehicles (EVs) have great potential for solving problems that threaten sustainability. However, the market penetration of EVs is difficult and slow. From the perspective of consumer resistance, this study proposes a theoretical model to investigate the impacts of two growing personal values in the Chinese context (materialism and ecological consciousness) on consumers’ purchase intention of EVs. The research model was empirically examined with online survey data from 511 general Chinese consumers. The results indicate that consumer resistance is a crucial element hindering EV consumption and that materialism will promote consumer resistance by exerting a positive impact on perceived costs and a negative impact on perceived benefits of purchasing EVs, while ecological consciousness can effectively prevent consumers from developing a resistant attitude by increasing perceived benefits and decreasing perceived costs of purchasing EVs. Furthermore, the mediation tests suggest that value perceptions (perceived costs and perceived benefits) fully mediate the effects of materialism and ecological consciousness on consumer resistance and that resistant attitude fully mediates the relationships between value perceptions and purchase intention of EVs. Theoretically, this study contributes to the literature by investigating the influence of materialism and ecological consciousness of EV consumption and verifying the underlying mechanism linking them. Practically, the findings of this study can provide valuable insights for promoting the market penetration of EVs.