Abstract:

Electric vehicle demands have increased rapidly since 2010, and depend on renewables and socioeconomic factors. Using panel data from fourteen countries between 2010 and 2015, this paper examines impact of seven factors in a multiple linear regression model. The factors include percentage of renewable energies in electricity generation, number of charging stations, education level, population density, gasoline price, GDP per capita and urbanization. The first four factors have apparent and positive impacts on the demands, and the last two factors don’t.  Policymakers may combine the three elements i.e. number of charging stations, population density, and education levels and position charging stations near locations with large concentrations of college educated inhabitants. The gasoline price affects the demands for BEVs (battery electric vehicles) more than that for PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles). Governments should consider gas taxes as tools to encourage BEV usages which can be truly clean with the electricity from renewables. Using other tax incentives, governments should be able to expand EV consumer bases and to encourage auto manufacturers to produce economic models of EVs. One percent increase in renewables would lead to approximately 2–6% increase in EV demands.