Modeling and Evaluation of Market Incentives for Battery Electric Vehicles

Electric mobility has great potential to help achieve global climate change mitigation goals. Within the domain of electric vehicles (EVs), battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have the largest advantage over conventional internal combustion engine technology. However, their penetration depends on many factors. Several studies have investigated the different policy incentives supporting the EV market, but less analytical research has been conducted to evaluate the different incentives. This study investigates the wide range of incentives that were adopted across 15 countries between 2010 and 2018, and their effectiveness in the market amidst other factors, using a generalized linear model. The results of the statistical analysis identified the availability of local BEV production facility, income, accessibility to fast charging infrastructure, and value-added tax exemptions as positive and statistically significant factors to the market share of BEVs across the years, while positive significant correlations were not identified for the other factors and incentives investigated. This emphasizes the impact of economic performance, technological certainty, and the presence of charging infrastructure with fast charging solutions in BEV adoption decision making, and could be an indication to policymakers of the limited impact of other factors when considered over a length of time.