Configuration of policy measures for Plug-In Electric vehicle adoption

Fleet electrifications are predominantly considered an instrument to lower oil dependency and greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. Accordingly, governments are developing and implementing electric vehicle policies and regulations that improve climate change and market penetration. However, stand-alone policy measures are noticed to lower the diffusion of PEV saturation. Therefore, which comprehensive package of conditions explains PEV adoption to take place? In response, the study employed a crispy-set qualitative comparative analysis approach, that takes the e-mobility policies, regulations, and mandates at the state and federal level across 20 states of the United States by comparing the conditions and cases that can influence PEV adoption and realize the combination of policy measures for e-mobility transition. The result validates the configurational theory, that the government policies trying to unravel several barriers to PEV adoption individually are implausible. As a result, we identified effective financial and incentivizing and construction of fuelling infrastructure in combination with PEV promoting mandates and agreements in combination with EV awareness campaigns that will lead to PEV adoption in the United States. Moreover, the upfront cost of BEVs was minimized mainly by the rebates, tax credits, and exemption of sales tax at the state and federal levels. The financial incentives in both levels have made BEV cost to be competitive, as the BEV TCO was 7.33% on average higher than ICE. Note that, the solution found in this study can’t be duplicated for another country as the cases are unique. Besides the conjunction of conditions for PEV adoption occurrence is not the mirror image of the conjunction for the non-occurrence. In conclusion, Policymakers should recognize that policies and strategies that need to promote e-mobility must be constructed and planned as all-inclusive bundles instead of an individual or separate action or policy. Furthermore, the causal relationship of factors and outcome (contingency theory) is now evidently justified that they won’t achieve in shifting towards e-mobilities.