1. Introduction
Environmental problems and climate change have been recognized as global issues [
1,
2]. The transportation sector has been considered a significant contributor to escalating environmental issues because it is responsible for 23% of global CO
2 emissions via fuel combustion [
3]. To combat the arising transportation-related environmental problems, such as traffic noise, air pollution, and CO
2 emission, it is necessary to pursue technological development in vehicles [
2,
4]. Advancement in the vehicle technology has been shifting vehicles’ engines from traditional internal combustion to electric ones [
5,
6,
7]. The worldwide sales of EVs have been increasing dramatically, underpinned by the supported transportation policies [
8]. In 2019, global EV sales reached a record number of 2.1 million, surpassing past years’ sales records [
9]. Despite the remarkable growth in EV sales, the uptake of EVs is still very limited due to its uneven market share across countries. For example, electric mobility was expanding at a fast pace in a few developed countries, including Norway (55.93%), Iceland (22.6%), the Netherlands (15.14%), and Sweden (11.43%). However, the penetration rate of EVs in the rest of the world was no more than 7% [
9].
The global passenger car fleet is projected to be doubled by the end of 2050, with most of its expected growth in developing countries. The United Nations Environment’s Electric Mobility Program has been initiated to support the developing and transitional countries to shift from fossil fuels to electric vehicles [
10]. Pakistan and India have set a 30% electric mobility target for 2030, but electric vehicle sales, including two and three-wheelers, remain low [
11]. Despite continuous growth in the EV sales volume in China, the market share of electric vehicles was only 2.7% in 2017 [
2,
12]. Likewise, Malaysia is also struggling to promote the adoption of EVs and their market penetration [
13]. Considering the low market penetration rate of EVs in developing countries, it is essential to explore the public intentions to adopt EVs to develop market strategies of promoting the EVs’ penetration. However, most relevant studies have focused on high-income and middle-income countries [
4,
12,
14,
15,
16,
17].
Being the seventh most vulnerable country to climate change, Pakistan must consider sustainable energy solutions [
18]. Road transportation in Pakistan relies on non-renewable energy resources and contributes 18% of the total CO
2 emissions [
19]. The country has been facing 310,000 deaths annually due to air pollution, indicating the extremely severe environmental conditions for public living [
20]. Increasing air pollution issues and its connection with road transportation brought government attention to EVs as an environmentally friendly solution [
21]. Recent media reports indicated the Pakistani Government’s interest in e-mobility and converting 90% of the vehicle fleet into electric-powered vehicles by 2040 [
22]. Under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor project, a policy framework has also been developed to identify the challenges in the uptake of e-mobility in the context of Pakistan [
18,
23]. However, the influencing factors to predict the people’s intentions to purchase EVs remain poorly understood. The recently introduced monetary benefits by the Government of Pakistan to EV manufacturers, buyers, and importers brought public interest towards EVs. With the Government’s support, it is expected that there will be a boom in EV production in Pakistan in the near future [
24]. Given this, there is an essential need to explore the public acceptance of electric vehicles through various factors that may guide the policymakers and EV manufacturers to predict the population’s intentions to purchase EVs.
Thus, this paper aims to explore the public behavioral intentions to purchase EVs in an area with an early stage of EV induction, i.e., Lahore, Pakistan. This paper proposed a hypothesis model to identify the influential factors of public behavioral intentions to purchase EVs, including environmental concerns, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. Environmental concerns refer to public awareness of environmental problems that indicate the willingness to contribute personally to environmental issues [
4,
25,
26,
27]. Performance expectancy refers to the degree to which an individual believes that using the vehicle will help them in attaining gains in their job performance [
28,
29]. Effort expectancy is the degree of ease associated with the use of EVs [
26,
30]. Facilitating conditions refer to the (perceived) external influences that relate to the technical, social, or organizational factors that support (or obstruct) the use of specific technology, such as EVs [
7]. Social influence is the degree to which individuals perceive the importance of vehicles via others’ beliefs that they should use EVs (new technology) [
26,
29]. Public behavioral intentions refer to public willingness to purchase EVs [
27,
30].
This paper employed a partial least square-based structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to confirm the hypothesis model [
31,
32], in line with past studies [
33,
34]. The multi-group analysis was also performed to capture sociodemographic heterogeneity. The suggestions and implications are prepared based on study findings, which can help automobile manufacturers to form efficient marketing strategies for EVs. This study also provides recommendations to policymakers to promote EV purchase intentions among locals. The literature was also briefly reviewed to develop a hypothesized model for the present study. Following the review segment, a detailed description of the study methods is given, followed by questionnaire design, data collection, respondent details, and the analytical instrument used to analyze the data. After the methodology, the study’s findings are presented, which were determined by executing a measurement model, structural model, and multi-group comparisons. Then, the discussion and implications are presented, and lastly, the conclusions, limitations, and future research directions are presented to illuminate the significance of this study.
2. Hypothesis Development
The consumption of fossil fuels by road transportation with internal combustion engines harms the environment [
2]. Considering the interlinkages of energy and transportation, worldwide induction of EVs is important to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals 2030 [
1,
35]. Previous studies [
36,
37,
38] have been discussing various strategies to explore EV adoption in different countries. Rafique and Town [
36] explored the potential of EV adoption in South Wales, Australia, where most of the inner-city vehicle trips were less than 30 km. This study mapped the average state of the charge distribution of electric vehicles during daytime and suggested the high feasibility of EV adoption and its potential impacts, such as reducing CO
2 emissions. A study from Portugal suggested increasing tax applied to fossil fuel consumption and conventional vehicle sales as an efficient solution to increase EVs’ diffusion [
37]. In Brazil, a SWOT analysis was conducted by Costa et al. [
38] to explore the stakeholders’ perspectives regarding EV adoption. The study analyzed the opportunities and challenges to adopting the EVs and suggested the market diffusion of light-duty electric vehicles as a first option. However, they argued that the EVs’ expansion requires market regulation, incentive policies, and adequate charging infrastructure.
Besides incentives and technological development, the diffusion of EVs in a society largely depends on the stakeholders’ perceptions of EVs [
39]. A recent meta-analysis of 211 peer-reviewed research papers by Singh et al. [
40] explored the psychological factors that influence the public perceptions to purchase EVs, such as social influence, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, environmental concerns, subjective norms, attitudes, and sociodemographic variables. They highlighted some prominent theories, including a theory of reasoned action [
41], the theory of planned behavior [
42], technology acceptance model [
43], and unified theory of acceptance and use of technology [
28], which have been extensively used in the previous literature to explore public intentions to purchase EVs. Meanwhile, Singh et al. [
40] confirmed that the significance of psychological factors varies from one country to another country. Moreover, the theories and factors used to predict EV adoption vary from one study to another [
39,
40,
44].
In Pakistan, EVs are in their early stage, and government organizations are trying to accelerate the market penetration of EVs to meet the target of 30% electric mobility by 2030 [
11,
24]. Furthermore, the air pollution in Lahore, Pakistan, has been rising continuously and causing deaths [
20,
23]. Alvi et al. [
45] revealed that Pakistanis who have a higher income and education level are sensitive to climate change and willing to adopt mitigation measures. Considering the environmental benefits of EVs and electric mobility targets of Pakistan [
24], this study considered environmental concerns, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions as the factors affecting individuals’ behavioral intentions to purchase EVs.
2.1. Environmental Concerns (EC)
Environmental concerns (EC) refer to public awareness of environmental problems that indicate the willingness to contribute personally to environmental issues [
4,
25,
26,
27]. A study from Hong Kong considered the influence of environmental concerns together with the perceived value, trust in EV, responsive efficacy, and willingness to pay on public intentions to purchase EVs [
27]. However, EC was not found to contribute to the public’s intentions to adopt EVs in their study. In contrast, Degirmenci and Breitner [
46] proposed that EC was a stronger predictor of attitudes towards purchase intentions to buy EVs than price value and range confidence. Thus, EC was found to have significant effects on the purchase intentions to buy EVs. Concurrently, a study from Saudi Arabia [
14] applied the theory of reasoned action [
41] to explore consumers’ intentions to adopt hybrid electric vehicles. Utilizing the SEM approach, they found that EC, subjective norms, and attitudes were significant predictors of behavioral intentions to adopt hybrid electric vehicles. Consistently, an anecdotal study from Malaysia also found that EC significantly affects public acceptance of electric vehicles [
26]. Besides EC, they have also considered other factors such as social influences, performance attributes, financial benefits, demographics, infrastructure readiness, and government interventions to apply multiple regression analysis to uncover the significant factors to predict EV purchase intentions. Another study from Malaysia [
47] used partial least squares structural equation modeling to uncover the purchase intentions of hybrid vehicles by a combination of norm activation theory [
48] and theory of planned behavior [
42]. The research findings confirm that the pro-environmental attitude and the social norms and perceived behavioral control positively influence the hybrid vehicle purchase intentions. From the above-mentioned studies, it is clear that EC is an important factor impacting the public intentions to purchase EVs. Considering that air pollution is the highest in Lahore, Pakistan, it is expected that the population are more concerned about the environment. Given this, we proposed the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1 (H1): Environmental concerns positively affect individuals’ behavioral intentions to purchase EVs.
2.2. Performance Expectancy (PE)
Performance expectancy (PE) is the degree to which an individual believes that using new technology can improve his/her job performance [
28]. It is an important construct that has been widely discussed in the literature related to the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology [
28,
30,
40]. In the context of EVs, PE refers to the degree to which EVs will provide benefits to users in performing particular daily activities [
49]. Previous studies have found that PE significantly affects the behavioral intentions to adopt new technology [
7,
28,
30,
50,
51]. For example, Zhou et al. [
50] found that PE positively affects the behavioral intentions to adopt electric trucks in China. Likewise, Tran et al. [
30] support the positive influence of PE on behavioral intentions in the context of electric car-sharing systems in China. An Australian study also confirmed that the early E-bike adoption was significantly influenced by perceived performance expectancy and supportive social environment and personal ecological norms [
7]. In Pakistan, EE was found to positively influence the acceptance of public cloud technology [
51]. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2 (H2): Performance expectancy (PE) positively affects individuals’ behavioral intentions to purchase EVs.
2.3. Effort Expectancy (EE)
Effort expectancy (EE) is the perceived degree of ease associated with the use of technology [
6,
28]. It is also referred to as ease of use in the technology acceptance model [
43]. In general, most of the previous studies [
29,
30,
49,
52] have confirmed the relevance of EE in predicting individuals’ behavioral intentions. For example, Ali et al. [
51] confirmed EE’s positive influence on users’ adoption of public cloud technology in Pakistan. Similarly, positive effects of EE on the acceptance of automated road transport systems were observed in a study conducted on European cities [
29]. In Pakistan, EVs are considered a new technology to transform the road transportation fossil fuel consumption to electricity [
18,
24]. Given this, it is expected that EE will have positive effects on individuals’ intentions to purchase EVs in Pakistan. Therefore, we proposed the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 3 (H3): Effort expectancy (EE) positively affects individuals’ behavioral intentions to purchase EVs.
2.4. Facilitating Conditions (FC)
Facilitating conditions (FC) means the degree to which an individual believes that an organizational and technical infrastructure exists to support the use of the system [
6,
28]. In the context of EVs, FC refers to the availability of organizations and infrastructure required in the future to use EVs smoothly for daily travel activities. In a German study, FC was found to have a positive influence on the individuals’ intentions to adopt battery electric vehicles. Similar findings were observed in China for the acceptance of driverless buses [
30]. In the Pakistani context, a study has confirmed the positive effects of FC on behavioral intentions to adopt public cloud technology [
51]. As the EV infrastructure, including charging stations and EV repair shops, is not widely available in Pakistan [
21], it will be interesting to explore the FC effects on individuals’ intentions to adopt EVs in the future. In line with the aforementioned studies, we proposed the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 4 (H4): Facilitating conditions (FC) positively affect individuals’ behavioral intentions to purchase EVs.
2.5. Social Influence (SI)
Social influence (SI) is the degree to which individuals perceive the importance of vehicles via others’ beliefs that they should use new technology [
26,
29]. SI is an important factor affecting individuals’ intentions to purchase EVs, as confirmed in a Malaysian study [
26]. Moreover, the positive relationship of SI with behavioral intentions was supported for the acceptance of automated road transport systems in European cities [
29]. However, the positive influence of SI on individuals’ intentions was not supported in a few studies from China (acceptance of electric car-sharing system) [
30] and Germany (users’ intentions to adopt battery electric vehicles) [
53]. It is obvious that SI’s influence on behavioral intentions to adopt technology is sensitive to the study context and the region. Ali et al. [
51] confirmed the positive influence of SI to adopt public cloud technology in the Pakistani context. Therefore, we assumed that SI would have a positive influence on individuals’ intentions to purchase EVs. Given this, we proposed the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 5 (H5): Social influence (SI) positively affects individuals’ behavioral intentions to purchase EVs.
From the above discussion, it is clear that public intentions to purchase EVs rely on the psychological factors affecting such behavior. Past studies have mentioned using a better understanding of behavioral aspects of purchase intentions in managing the marketing strategies and promotion to enhance EVs’ market penetration [
8,
40]. In a previous discussion, we postulated five hypotheses consistent with previous studies, which can also be seen in the conceptual model presented in
Figure 1.
5. Discussion
This study aimed to examine the factors influencing the behavioral intentions to purchase EVs among individuals from low-income countries. Generally, the findings illustrate that the respondents from Lahore, Pakistan were highly concerned about the environment and were willing to adopt mitigation measures to preserve the environment, consistent with the findings of Alvi et al. [
45]. The results also revealed that the respondents perceived a high performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence regarding the EVs in Lahore, Pakistan. Comparatively, the respondents were reluctant to show their agreement to perceive sufficient facilitating conditions for EV usage as the EV infrastructure is not widely available. Overall, more than 60% of the respondents showed their willingness to purchase EVs in the future. Such findings indicate a strong possibility of EV usage at a large scale in Lahore, Pakistan in the future with the support of EV policy.
As expected, environmental concerns, performance expectancy, and effort expectancy were related to behavioral intentions to purchase EVs. However, social influence and facilitating conditions were found to be insignificant to explain behavioral intentions to purchase EVs. The comparison of results based on subgroups, including gender, age, education level, occupation, and car ownership, led to interesting findings relevant to the research’s scope. Thus, a clear understanding of psychological factors and sociodemographic differences is important to enhance public behavioral intentions to purchase EVs.
Environmental concerns refer to public awareness of environmental problems and support the effort to solve them or indicate the willingness to contribute personally towards environmental issues. EVs are an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional vehicles. The positive and direct relation of environmental concerns with behavioral intentions to purchase EVs is understandable. This finding is also understandable in the Pakistani context as the country faces serious air pollution issues that adversely affect the residents’ health [
55]. It is reasonable for the respondents to be concerned about the environment and show their willingness to reduce environmental pollution. Such findings are also consistent with previous studies. For example, a survey from China has confirmed the direct influence of environmental concerns on behavioral intentions to purchase automated EVs [
25]. Another anecdotal study from Germany also had consistent findings, where environmental performance significantly influenced the attitudes towards EVs and purchase intentions of EVs [
46]. Moreover, a study which was conducted in Malaysia found positive effects of environmental concerns on behavioral intentions to adopt EVs [
26]. From Pakistan, Alvi et al. [
45] confirmed the public willingness to adopt mitigating strategies to preserve the environment. From China, Wang et al. [
65] highlighted the importance of environmental concerns affecting the financial policy measures and convenience policy measures for EV adoption. However, Pakistan’s policies fail to include a mechanism to spread environmental awareness [
24]. Therefore, to enhance the public behavioral intentions to purchase EVs, policymakers need to pay attention to the perceived knowledge about environmental concerns through effective marketing campaigns, i.e., training courses and poster displays. This study also suggests consideration of environmental concerns while preparing marketing strategies, including social and traditional media advertisements for EVs. By doing so, consumers’ intentions to purchase EVs will increase in relevance with the increase in their environmental concerns. The effect of environmental concerns on behavioral intentions to purchase EVs was higher for females as compared to males. Considering the research findings, this study suggests a parameter of gender differences, while preparing policy campaigns to enhance knowledge of environmental concerns. Females will be more easily motivated to purchase EVs by increasing the environmental concerns as compared to males. People who do not have cars perceived a higher association of environmental concerns to behavioral intentions to purchase EVs.
The findings regarding performance expectancy influence on behavioral intentions to purchase EVs are in line with previous studies from Germany [
53], China [
30], and Pakistan. The German study found a significant relationship between performance expectancy and battery electric vehicles’ adoption [
53]. Likewise, the Chinese study confirmed the similar findings for public acceptance of electric car-sharing systems. Performance expectancy was found to have a positive influence on the acceptance of public cloud technology [
51]. Thus, EV manufacturers need to enhance the consumer’s perceived performance expectancy by intensifying the EVs’ benefits, such as reducing air pollution, working efficiency, and usability. Performance expectancy association with behavioral intentions to purchase EVs was higher in the participants who had cars. The postgraduates experienced a greater influence of performance expectancy to behavioral intentions as compared to those who had an education level of undergraduate or below. Thus, initial campaigns should be targeted towards people who have fuel cars and have a higher education level.
Consistent with recent studies from Germany [
53] and China [
30], effort expectancy significantly influenced behavioral intentions to purchase EVs. The finding is also in line with a study conducted in Pakistan on the adoption of public cloud technology [
51]. From this finding, EV manufacturers’ possible implication is to spread awareness about EVs’ usage to make the public aware of EVs’ easy usage. Furthermore, the marketing strategies should be developed to disclose EVs’ consumer-friendly features, which could help to enhance the perceived effort expectancy and purchase intentions towards EVs. Policymakers and the government should also play their role in reducing the uncertainty and complexity regarding EV usage, which hinders the public from adopting this environmentally friendly mode of transportation. The possible implication for increasing purchase intentions by effort expectancy is to spread public awareness that EV usage is simple and easy. The participants with (≤50,000 PKR) monthly household income experienced a higher positive influence (β = 0.29,
p < 0.01) of effort expectancy towards behavioral intentions as compared to participants with a monthly household income of (>50,000 PKR). A smaller positive change in effort expectancy perception for those with a (≤50,000 PKR) monthly income will bring a higher positive change in EV purchase intentions for this group, compared to those who have a (>50,000 PKR) monthly household income. Moreover, effort expectancy association with behavioral intentions to purchase was lower in the people who had cars. Thus, car ownership and income differences should be considered while preparing strategies to spread awareness about the effort expectancy of EVs.
Contrary to previous studies from Malaysia [
26], Austria [
7], and Pakistan [
51], the present study could not find a significant relationship between social influence and behavioral intentions to purchase EVs. The rationale for this finding is that EVs are in their infancy in Pakistan; therefore, more time is required for people to purchase EVs at a large scale, positively influencing others. However, the insignificant relationship of social influence and behavioral intentions to purchase EVs is consistent with a German [
53] and a Chinese study [
30].
The findings indicate the insignificant relationship between facilitating conditions and behavioral intentions to purchase EVs. This finding is unexpected and contradicts the findings from Germany [
53] and China [
50]. The possible reason for this lies in the understanding of public perceptions regarding new facilities in low-income countries. Chen et al. [
52] discussed the weak relation between facilitating conditions and individuals’ behavioral intentions to use driverless buses in China. They argued that the driverless bus is an emerging technology for Chinese respondents, and a vague understanding of policy support and government initiatives to the new technologies resulted in an unexpected finding. Likewise, EVs are an emerging technology for Pakistan. The general public is unaware of government policies to ease the taxes and plans for infrastructural development [
24]. Thus, there is a need to disclose the e-mobility plans to the general public to understand the available facilitating conditions in Pakistan.
Furthermore, no significant difference was found in the two age groups, (≤30 years old) and (>30 years old), regarding the effects of environmental concerns, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions on behavioral intentions to purchase EVs. This finding was unexpected and contrary to a previous study from China [
30]. The possible reason is the early stage of EVs in Pakistan, leading to similar perceptions regarding EVs for different age groups.
In summary, environmental concerns, performance expectancy, and effort expectancy significantly affected behavioral intentions to purchase EVs in the Pakistani context. Such findings are similar to those in other parts of the world, including Germany [
53], Austria [
7], and China [
25,
30,
50]. However, the social influence and facilitating conditions did not significantly affect the public intentions to purchase EVs, inconsistent with previous studies from China [
50], Germany [
53], and Malaysia [
26]. Such complex and unpredictable findings helped to elucidate the regional differences in public perceptions across the globe.
Finally, all measures and implications discussed above need to be taken collectively to promote EV purchase intentions in the general public effectively. For example, manufacturers need to consider the consumer’s perceived importance of environmental concerns, performance expectancy, and effort expectancy. Marketing strategies in line with psychological factors can enhance the public intentions to purchase EVs significantly. Thus, advertisement for EVs should highlight the environmentally friendly aspects and reduce the uncertainty about EVs regarding performance and effort expectancy. Such implications will ease the psychological barriers to adopting EVs. In the long run, this will develop a social environment in which individuals are willing to purchase EVs and contribute to the reduction of environmental pollution.
6. Conclusions
This study categorically investigated the relationship among environmental concerns, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions with people’s behavioral intentions to purchase EVs in Pakistan. In Pakistan, the use of EVs is in its infancy, and this is the first study that explored the public intentions to purchase EVs. The results were obtained by analyzing a valid sample of data of 359 respondents through the partial least square structural equation modeling approach. Environmental concerns, performance expectancy, and effort expectancy significantly affect public intentions to purchase EVs. By shedding light on the factors influencing EV purchase intentions in Pakistan, this study advises EV manufacturers to articulate effective marketing strategies to encourage people towards EVs. Moreover, it advises policymakers to promote e-mobility for sustainable transportation through a better understanding of public intentions to purchase EVs. The empirical evidence in the present study highlights the need for educational interventions, advertisements, and poster displays to enhance environmental knowledge and clarity about EVs’ performance and usage. The lack of information about EVs hindered the local population from choosing EVs. Thus, government organizations and EV manufacturers should arrange awareness programs to underline EVs’ advantages compared to traditional gasoline vehicles. Undoubtedly, it can be inferred that EV usage will gradually increase in the future.
Despite discussing EVs’ purchase intentions for the first time in the Pakistani context, this study has a few limitations. The readers should be wary of generalizing these study findings to a broader population because all the participants were literate and had access to the internet as the survey was conducted online. We suggest that future studies should include participants from more diverse backgrounds, which will help to elucidate the issue from a wider perspective. Other socio-psychological factors, including price, incentives, policy support, perception, and attitudes, may further expand the understanding of the behavioral intentions to purchase EVs in developing countries. Finally, the findings of the study provide valuable information for policymakers, stakeholders, and EV manufacturers interested in EV technology and its spread in Pakistan.