Title: Fleet vehicle buyers' intentions to purchase electric vehicles: antecedents and possible consequences

Authors: Roger Bennett

Addresses: London Guildhall Business School, London Metropolitan University, 84 Moorgate, EC2M 6SQ, London, UK

Abstract: This paper explores fleet motor vehicle buyers' attitudes and intentions regarding electric vehicles (EVs). Fleet sales account for over half of all west European new car registrations, with consequent implications for the private used-car market. It follows that the mass marketisation of EVs can only occur if fleet managers incorporate substantial numbers of EVs into their fleets. A survey of 364 UK based commercial and public sector fleet buyers was completed with the aim of identifying personal and organisational factors that might encourage fleet managers to purchase EVs. A model based on the extended theory of planned behaviour (ETPB) guided the research and was estimated using the method of partial least squares. Few of the fleets in the survey included EVs and intention to buy EVs in the future was low, even among fleet managers holding highly favourable attitudes towards electric vehicles.

Keywords: electric cars; marketing communications; car fleet buyers; fleet vehicles; promotional strategies; environment; electric vehicles; intention to purchase; fleet buyer attitudes; UK; United Kingdom; personal factors; organisational factors; fleet managers; extended TPB; theory of planned behaviour; ETPB; partial least squares; PLS.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEHV.2015.074677

International Journal of Electric and Hybrid Vehicles, 2015 Vol.7 No.4, pp.362 - 374

Received: 07 May 2015
Accepted: 01 Nov 2015
Published online: 12 Feb 2016 *

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