Although barriers to the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), such as purchase price, range limitation, and charging infrastructure are diminishing, sales growth has still fallen short of industry expectations. As industry and governments have an interest in counteracting this negative trend by incentivizing EV purchasing, a better understanding of potential EV adopters and drivers of early adoption becomes paramount for designing effective and efficient incentive schemes. Therefore, drawing on a representative survey of Austrian citizens, this study analyzes early adopters, potential adopters, and non-adopters of EVs. Findings indicate that psychological and, to a lesser extent, socio-demographic factors play a significant role in predicting EV adoption. Non-adopters are more likely to have an individualistic and less egalitarian worldview, and also, compared to early adopters, to fall short in terms of pro-environmental and pro-technological attitude. Further, early adopters are inclined to live in regions with EV policy incentives. Using cluster analysis, this study identifies four groups of potential EV adopters based on their evaluation of EV purchasing and non-purchasing motives. The potential-adopter segments differ considerably in their socio-demographic and psychological characteristics, as well as in their preferences for policy incentives. We discuss implications of our findings for the design of effective policy schemes and marketing measures.
