Energies, Vol. 13, Pages 1645: Alternative Incentive Policies against Purchase Subsidy Decrease for Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) Adoption (Energies)

The purchase subsidy policy gives powerful support in battery electric vehicles’ (BEVs) market penetration. However, the purchase subsidy is also a huge financial burden for the government, so it can only be considered as a transitional measure and will be canceled gradually. This paper aims to investigate the impact of purchase subsidy phase-out on BEV adoptions and explore alternative incentive policies to continue stimulating BEV adoptions. A stated preference (SP) survey is conducted in Beijing, and a binary logit (BL) model is established to describe how various factors affect BEV adoption preferences. In addition to the factors related to vehicle techniques, the policies of license plate restrictions and driving restrictions are focused due to Beijing’s unique external policy environment. The vehicle use subsidy and bus line driving permit are tested as alternative incentive policies against the purchase subsidy decrease. The results show that incentive policies can significantly influence BEV adoption intentions. If the purchase subsidy policy is canceled in Beijing, the BEV choice probability will be reduced from 45.94% to 16.62%. In this case, the vehicle use subsidy needs to be set at the level of 4966 CNY/year (714.3 USD/year) to maintain the original BEV choice probability.