A User Perspective on current Drivers and Barriers for Electric Vehicle Usage in Austria

The global electric vehicle market is rapidly growing, which is an important step, as electro-mobility is an essential driver for achieving climate targets. However, acceptance of electric vehicles is still lacking among potential users. To overcome their skepticism, it is necessary to understand the decisive factors for the consumers’ decision-making process. Therefore, this work investigates essential drivers and barriers to electric vehicle adoption derived from international literature. Electric vehicle users from the electro-mobility-club Austria were interviewed by means of an online survey. Importance-performance analysis was conducted to analyze the data. Interpretations are supported by means of receiver operating characteristic analysis. The results show that the environmental performance of electric vehicles is a key motivator for participants and that this is already perceived as satisfying. Major barriers governments and manufactures should address are acquisition cost, range and time consumption associated with the usage of electric vehicles.