Abstract

India signed in 2015 the historic Paris climate agreement together with more than 170 nations in order to fight against global warming and to reduce CO2-emissions in order to control global warming caused by greenhouse effect. The transportation sector was in 2021 the second biggest source of CO2-emissions worldwide. Decarbonising this sector will have a major effect on the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. That is the reason why this sector will be challenged by the pressure through politics and legal demands for CO2-neutral and emission free vehicles. India is also facing those challenges. At the Glasgow Climate Change Conference in 2021 India announced to be climate neutral in 2070. There is no single best solution to decarbonising the transportation sector, but since passenger cars are the major source of CO2- emissions within the Indian transportation sector, the share of electric passenger cars is supporting to decrease greenhouse gas emissions. The purpose of this research is to identify and define the key influencing factors towards the acceptance behaviour of electric passenger cars out of a customer´s perspective in order to promote the sales of electric passenger cars in India. Through a systematic literature review and conducted expert interviews 14 influencing factors towards the acceptance behaviour of electric passenger cars have been identified, as well as gaps in the state of the art. A structural equation modelling was applied using the variance-based method to operationalize the complex Technology Acceptance Model of this research. Moreover, 24 research hypotheses have been outlined by the researcher which have been empirically validated and thus either confirmed or falsified through the data out of the field research. For the field research an online questionnaire was conducted with 232 participants. There were unexpected findings in this research, such as that driving range does not have a major impact on the general behavioural intention to use electric passenger cars; however, hypotheses such as that governmental incentives and a sufficient charging infrastructure do positively influence the acceptance behaviour towards electric passenger cars, have been confirmed. Thus, the findings out of this research will help to address the right topics to promote electric passenger cars successfully in India, to reduce CO2-emissions in India and to contribute combating global warming. This thesis will derive design parameters for policy makers and other utilities in order to understand existing gaps in the expansion of e-mobility in India and in order to show recommendations for action.

Keywords

E-mobility, India, Technology Acceptance Model, Acceptance Behavior, Electric Passenger Cars

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Date

2023

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