University of California Institute of Transportation Studies

We investigate the impacts of a combination of incentives on the purchase decisions of electric vehicle (EV) buyers in California from 2010 through 2017. We employ a comprehensive survey on over 14,000 purchasers of EVs in California. The survey covers a range of purchase intentions, general demographics, and the importance of various incentives. Our results indicate that the most important incentives for plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) owners are the federal tax credit, the state rebate, and HOV lane access. In addition, the importance of the incentives and their associated effect on purchase behaviour has been changing over time: respondents are more likely to change their decisions and to not buy a vehicle at all as time passes and the technology moves away from early adopters.