Moving towards sustainable transportation: commuters’ switching intention from internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to electric vehicles (EVs). The rise in use of Vinfast EVs in Ho Chi Minh City

Abstract

Encouraging people to opt for sustainable transportation is getting increasingly significant due to the seriousness of the environmental pollution. The Push-Pull-Mooring (PPM) framework and Norm Activation Model (NAM), including personal norms, awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility, were employed to explore the switching intentions of people from internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to electric vehicles (EVs). The research model was tested with 361 valid responses among Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) residents. The results showed that the push factors, including perceived environmental threats, perceived health risks and regulative environments, drive individual’s mode-shift away from ICEVs. The pull factors, including performance expectancy, green perceived value, normative environment and green advertising, attract individual’s mode-shift to EVs. The mooring factors, namely inertia, influence individuals’ willingness to shift negatively, however, the variable mostly doesn’t affect the relationship of push and pull to switching intention, except for performance expectancy. In addition, infrastructure barriers and switching costs are found to influence inertia. The results also show that personal norms positively linked to personal switching intention to adopt EVs; awareness of consequences affect ascription of responsibility positively and vice versa. This research explicates the factors that influence personal switching intention from ICEVs to EVs, which might be effective in alleviating environmental pollution.