Challenges for the Adoption of Electric Vehicles in Thailand: Potential Impacts, Barriers, and Public Policy Recommendations
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The title of the manuscript seems to be appropriate, and the content of the manuscript is suitable for the journal. The manuscript is about studying the potential impacts and barriers regarding the adoption of electric vehicles to help inform public policy in Thailand.
The abstract section is written well and covers the necessary information. The introduction section satisfactorily describes the context and purpose of the study. However, a brief discussion on the current EV statistics in Thailand should have been included, providing the historical number of ICEVs and EVs, the number of charging stations in operation, etc.
The literature review section needs to be strengthened by including the latest articles relating to barriers to EV adoption in developing nations, and the gaps in the existing literature should be made clear.
The methodology section gives an inadequate level of detail on the methods employed for the data analysis. For instance, there is no information about the thematic analysis method adopted in the study. The demographic profile of the people being interviewed should also be included in the manuscript. The analysis results have been inadequately explained; for instance, for studies based on data collected via audio interviews, it is advisable to provide textual excerpts from the interviews to support your arguments.
The conclusion section has an unsupported claim that ‘it is universally accepted that the increment in EV usage would lead to a reduction in air pollution and energy consumption’.
Some of the references are not listed correctly. The manuscript is not written satisfactorily, and the research, in its current form, is likely to draw little interest from the readers of this work.
There were a lot of grammatical errors in the manuscript. Many abbreviations used in the manuscript have been defined multiple times, which is not needed. The terms "EVs" and "electric vehicles" have been used inconsistently throughout the manuscript. Please re-read the manuscript and rectify those errors (some of them are highlighted in yellow). Please see additional comments in the attached PDF.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors presented a comprehensive study of Thailand's challenges to adopting EVs. They started by laying background by looking at a brief history of EVs. The authors then suggested the potential impacts of EVs on the environment, energy consumption, existing auto industry and usage pattern of vehicles in addition to others. Finally, the authors discussed barriers to EV adoption before providing policy recommendations.
The manuscript is topical and exciting. My comments on some the aspects of the manuscript are as follows:
Presentation Comments:
The Abstract introduces what is being done and why and gives vital results and conclusions.
Introduction
The introduction does not clearly state what has been done that has not been done before.
The literature review is limited to the industrial context. An article of this importance should have a comprehensive literature review that effectively captures most of the issues around the subject matter and studies related to the conducted studies.
Manuscript Body
The body of the manuscript has a lot of useful information that has been carefully synthesized. However, there is a need to address some issues regarding flow and grammatical errors.
Conclusions
Any reservations and/or limitations have not been indicated.
The conclusion is too short for a paper of this nature. I believe some essential points captured by the authors have been missed in conclusion. The authors need to expand the conclusion to capture some important missed aspects.
Formatting
Figure titles do not follow the journal's specifications. Although minor, the manuscript's formatting, citation and referencing did not follow MDPI specifications.
TECHNICAL COMMENTS:
Line 193: What will be the projected financial and/or technical implication of adopting V2G to the existing infrastructure? Does the existing infrastructure need to be upgraded? How feasible is the proposal?
Line 215: Please check and confirm. The section numbers may be wrong.
Line 255: How do fast charging and the trajectory for development in fast charging and battery technology affect the concerns presented in this paragraph?
As highlighted by the Authors on line 260, there is a preference for charging EVs at night. As EVs are adopted, this phenomenon will likely affect peak demand on the grid. It is recommended that the authors discuss this briefly in a suitable place within the manuscript.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I am happy with the amendments to the manuscript.
