A second-order cone programming based robust data envelopment analysis model for the new-energy vehicle industry

The validity of performance evaluation is determined by, and therefore greatly influenced by, the accuracy of data set. To address such imprecise and negative data problems widely spread in the real world, this paper proposes a second-order cone based robust data envelopment analysis (SOCPR-DEA) model, which is more robust to data variety. Further, this new computational tractable model is applied to analyze 13 new-energy vehicle (NEV) manufacturers from China. The findings support that the SOCPR-DEA model could well mitigate the deficiency caused by data variety, and the evidence from Chinese NEV industry shows that a focus strategy is more likely to enhance a firm’s efficiency especially at its emerging stage, and the efficiency is more sensitive with production cost than other factors such as research and development, sales income, earnings per share, and predicted income. In addition, this paper also gives some industrial implications and policy suggestions based on these interesting findings.