Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 67 (2022) 102969

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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services

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Who will adopt electric vehicles? Segmenting and exemplifying potential

buyer heterogeneity and forthcoming research
Deepak Jaiswal a, 1, Arun Kumar Deshmukh a, Park Thaichon b, *
a
Institute of Management Studies, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, 221005, India
b
Department of Marketing, Griffith University, Australia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Market segmentation becomes a crucial tool for evolving transportation technology such as electric vehicles
Electric vehicles (EVs) in emerging markets to explore and implement for extensive adoption. EVs adoption is expected to grow
Market segmentation phenomenally in near future as low emission and low operating cost vehicle, and thus, it drives a considerable
Cluster analysis
amount of forthcoming academic research curiosity. The main aim of this study is to explore and identify distinct
Attitude towards electric vehicles
Subjective norms
sets of potential buyer segments for EVs based on psychographic, behavioral, and socio-economic character­
Adoption intention ization by employing an integrated research framework of ‘perceived benefits-attitude-intention’, The study
Sustainable transportation applied robust analytical procedures including cluster analysis, multiple discriminant analysis and Chi-square
test to operationalize and validate segments from the data collected of 563 respondents using a cross-sectional
online survey. The findings posit that the three distinct sets of young consumer groups have been identified
and labelled as ‘Conservatives’, ‘Indifferents’, and ‘Enthusiasts’ which are deemed to be buddying EV buyers The
implications are recommended, which may offer some pertinent guidance for scholars and policymakers to
encourage EVs adoption in the backdrop of emerging sustainable transport market.

1. Introduction
Electric vehicles (EVs) are innovative automotive technology that
runs partially or fully from electricity-powered in an onboard battery
pack (Asadi et al., 2021; Plötz et al., 2014). Due to EVs’ potential to
enhance energy effectiveness, energy security, and reduced greenhouse
gas emission, they are becoming popular among customers (Huang
et al., 2021; Peters et al., 2018; Rezvani et al., 2018; Wesseling et al.,
2015). The global adoption of EVs is much faster than expected which is
evidenced through sales figures hovering around 2.3 million cars alone
in 2020 which indicates a fourfold rise in the period of five years (WEF,
2020). Electric car sales accounted for 2.6% of the worldwide automo­
bile sales with a year-on-year increase of 40% (IEA, 2020).
Despite the seamless ecological advantages and individual benefits
observed at the global level, the adoption rate of EVs in India hovers
around 0.1% (NITI Aayog, 2018), which concurrently indicates the
enormous market potential for EVs. On the other hand, the macroeco­
nomic drivers triggering the potential growth in the EVs market are
highly favorable along with the vision of the government to early launch
the BS-VI mandate so as to reduce the carbon emission caused by the
traditional combustion engines. The key drivers behind our existing
higher carbon emission and consequent air pollution (PwC, 2018), fuel
security risks, and lower power demand (NICCI, 2018). The report cited
reveals that by 2030, the adoption of EVs can reduce carbon emissions
by 37%. Also, with the adoption of EVs along with other sustainable
solutions in the present mobility market, India can reduce the
mobility-related energy demand and can have budgeted savings of up to
64% by 2030 and the resultant increase in fuel security. Likewise, a
potential upsurge in the number of EVs adopters or users can impel the
power sector to ensure full capacity utilization as well (India Energy
Outlook, 2021).
The burgeoning interest in EVs by consumers and policymakers
across the globe is due to their potential to enhance energy efficiency,
meet individual transport needs while curtailing the carbon or green­
house gas emission and noise pollution from conventional vehicle
transport (Huang et al., 2021; Peters and Dütschke, 2014; Peters et al.,
2018). Moreover, another global and macro driver for the adoption of
such technology is the commitments of the world nations toward the
attainment of sustainable development goals (SDGs) laid out by the
United Nation Development Program (UNDP, 2015). The EVs and

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: djaiswal93@gmail.com (D. Jaiswal), akdeshmukh@fmsbhu.ac.in (A.K. Deshmukh), p.thaichon@griffith.edu.au (P. Thaichon).
1
Dr. Deepak Jaiswal (djaiswal93@gmail.com) is the awardee of ICSSR Post-Doctoral Fellowship

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2022.102969
Received 4 October 2021; Received in revised form 25 January 2022; Accepted 24 February 2022
0969-6989/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
D. Jaiswal et al.
similar alternate fuel options available in the market are an innovation
that demands a thorough analysis of the ways in which customers adopt,
use, and dispose them of. The effective diffusion of a product in the
market essentially hinges on the extent to which the tastes, preferences,
and demands of different consumer groups are accommodated (Morton
et al., 2017; Olson, 2013; Wedel and Kamakura, 2012). The strategic
marketing literature offers a segmentation concept to enable the mar­
keters to classify the heterogenous consumers market into homogenous
sub-groups so that it becomes manageable to target such sub-groups
with the same marketing strategy (Mohamed et al., 2016; Nosi et al.,
2014).
It is imperative for marketers to analyze the consumer market based
on existing vis-à-vis future adoption potential and strategize their seg­
mentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) strategies so as to tap the
innovators, early adopters, and early majority customer market (Rogers,
2003). According to the research conducted by Abotalebi et al. (2015),
Anable et al. (2011), and Plötz et al. (2014), market segmentation be­
comes a significant tool for an emerging transport technology such as EV
in countries like India so as to explore and guide their extensive adoption
(Singh et al., 2020). The studies in the past have researched the purchase
profile of the EV customers using multiple segmentation themes
including socio-demographic and economic characterization, benefits
sought, partly behavioral characteristics, etc. The majority of the studies
emphasized the customers belonging to initial three customer
groups-innovators, early adopters, and early majority from the tech­
nology adoption cycle proposed by Roger (2003) as they constitute
nearly 50 per cent of the market offering huge potential (Axsen et al.,
2018; Lee et al., 2019; Mukherjee and Ryan, 2020; Potoglou et al.,
2020). The profile of these early adopters also revealed that they are
young and educated consumers (Hackbarth and Madlener, 2013;
McLeay et al., 2018).
To operationalize the phenomenon of EV adoption, scholars widely
employed cognitive behavioral theories namely theory of reasoned ac­
tion (TRA), theory of planned behavior (TPB), and technology accep­
tance model (TAM) etc. in varied market settings (Alzahrani et al., 2019;
Jaiswal et al., 2021a). However, less stressed on the cognitive measure
such as EV knowledge (Higueras-Castillo et al., 2019), social norms, and
the external stimulus of financial incentives policy (Wang et al., 2021) to
describe users’ behavioral intent to adopt sustainable automobile
especially among the potential young adults. In addition, classification
of EV consumers and their profiling remains still underexplored,
particularly in the emerging market context.
At prima facie, few segmentation studies reported with emphasis on
the selected bases of socio-demographic, psychographic, and behavioral
to classify and describe EV market based on current users in the back­
drop of industrial economies (Gärling, 2000; Morton et al., 2017; Nosi
et al., 2014; Oliver and Rosen, 2010; Plötz et al., 2014). Moreover, the
previous studies (Hackbarth and Madlener, 2013; McLeay et al., 2018;
Mohamed et al., 2016; Morton et al., 2017; Nosi et al., 2014) revealed
that the innovators and early adopters of EVs or hybrid vehicles tend to
be the younger population due to technology enthusiasm and environ­
mental consciousness (Plötz et al., 2014; Gulzari et al., 2022).
However, such classification studies were scant in the emerging
markets (Saleem et al., 2018; Singh et al., 2020), particularly in the
Indian setting of emerging sustainable transportation (Verma et al.,
2020). India is now attributed by the world’s largest millennial or Gen Y
market (median age of 28.4 years) which accounts for 23% (1.8 billion)
of the global population who are techno-savvy and innovators, creators,
and future leaders called ‘Youngistan’ (The Times of India, 2021). The
electrification of vehicles can provide considerable leverage to the In­
dian automobile sector and position it as a global carbon-free transport
market (World Economic Forum, 2019) with swelling demand for two
and four-wheelers among younger and middle-income consumer groups
(NITI Aayog, 2018). Thus, segmenting younger and educated group of
consumers is most likely to play a vital role in the mass-circulation of
EVs in the near future as innovators, early adopters and potential buyers
2
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 67 (2022) 102969
(Habich-Sobiegalla et al., 2019; Jaiswal et al., 2021a).
Therefore, the present segmentation study employed the mixed and
extended perspective of social cognitive and technology acceptance
theories (TRA and TAM) with the additional measures of knowledge and
incentives policy to classify the potential EV market with a specific focus
on Indian young consumers including millennials, Gen Y, and Gen Z
(18–25 years) in sub-groups as potential buyers followed by their socio-
economic profiling. Thus, the study aimed to contribute to the existing
EV market segmentation knowledge-base and to offer pertinent insights
to marketers and policymakers.
Based on the mentioned discourse, this study argued that young
adults and educated segment of millennials including Gen Z would be
considered as prospective EV buyers., especially in the low emission
emerging automobile market. Therefore, the study endeavours to
address the following important research questions in order to fill the
important research gap in the extant body of knowledge pertaining to
EVs market segmentation with marked stress on young consumers as
potential buyers in the backdrop of emerging sustainable transportation.
(1) what measures or variables are operationalised for psychographic,
behavioral, and socio-economic characterization to segment potential
EVs market? (2) To what extent psychographic and behavioral charac­
terizations along with socio-economic ones can be used for classifying
the potential buyers of EVs? and (3) How do the outcomes of psycho­
graphic, behavioral, and socio-economic segmentation bases contribute
to understanding and classifying potential EVs market for millennials
including Gen Z?
To address the aforesaid study inquiries, the objectives of this seg­
mentation research are mentioned as follow: (1) to identify the main
bases or criteria for segmenting the potential EVs consumer market; (2)
to determine the selected measures used for operationalising psycho­
graphic, behavioral, and socio-economic segmentation bases of EVs
consumer market.; and (3) to endorse policies and strategies for pro­
moting EVs adoption for millennials. Therefore, the contribution of this
study unfolds to the literature in several ways. First, the research
considerably contributes to the existing literature on EV market seg­
mentation by exemplifying potential buyers’ heterogeneity to classify
them into distinct sub-groups in a near future of an emerging sustainable
transport market. Second, the study highlights a linkage perspective of
‘perceived benefits-attitude-intention’ to segment potential EV buyers,
underpinned through the lenses of social cognitive and technology
acceptance theories in a mixed and extended context (TRA, TPB and
TAM). Third, the study tests a comprehensive model of young consumers
classification using socio-economic, psychographic, and behavioral at­
tributes/heterogeneity for segmenting the potential EV market with a
specific focus on young consumers. Fourth, the study makes a note­
worthy contribution to the literature by emphasizing the classification of
young-educated consumers (millennials and Gen Z) as early adopters or
potential buyers for EV in the backdrop of the zero-emission transport
market where the consumer adoption of electric mobility is in an early
and nascent phase. In is especially the case for a market such as Indian
and similar contexts. Finally, the study unveils the role of segments’
outcomes in crafting marketing policies and strategies to encourage the
demand of EV adoption towards sustainable transportation and the
persuasion of achieving sustainable development goals.
The remainder of this paper comprised a ‘Literature review’ section
pertaining to the theoretical background and conceptual model followed
by the section on ‘Methods discussing underlying survey measures,
sampling, and data collection. In the next section, the analysis and re­
sults section encompasses the analytical process of common method
bias, confirmatory factor analysis, cluster analysis, multiple discrimi­
nant analysis followed by the results of the Chi-square test for socio-
economic characterization, and the results of labelling and profiling of
clusters. Finally, the paper comes up with a vital ‘Discussion’ section
followed by the section of ‘Conclusion and policy implications’ focusing
on its theoretical and practical facets alongside highlighting limitations
and forthcoming research.
D. Jaiswal et al.
2. Literature review
The first part of the present section focuses on the literature per­
taining to market segmentation, which includes selected studies
embedding segmentation approaches to the EVs market. The second
section, on the other hand, offers the theoretical underpinning which
leads to the development of the conceptual model.
2.1. Market segmentation for electric vehicles
The market segmentation approach aims at defining actionable,
manageable, homogenous subgroups of individual customers to whom
the marketers can target with a similar set of marketing strategies
(Mohamed et al., 2016; Shao et al., 2019; Wedel and Kamakura, 2012;
Zheng et al., 2021). In practice, there are two ways of segmenting the
market-a-priori and post-hoc. An a-priori approach utilizes predefined
characteristics such as age, gender, income, education, etc. to predefine
the segments followed by profiling based on a host of measured vari­
ables (behavioral, psychographic and/or benefit). In the post-hoc
approach to segmentation on other hand, the segments are identified
based on the relationship among the multiple measured variables
(Kennedy et al., 2019; Sánchez-Fernández et al., 2019). The common­
ality between both approaches lies in the fact that the measured vari­
ables determine the ‘segmentation theme’. The present study utilizes an
a-priori approach to segmentation so as to divide the potential EV cus­
tomers into sub-groups.
It is argued that the blended approach of psychographic and socio-
economic attributes for market segmentation enables the formulation
of sub-market strategies which in turn satisfy the specific tastes and
preferences of the consumer groups (Geng et al., 2020). Straughan and
Roberts (1999) (c.f. Morton et al., 2017) presented a comparison be­
tween the usefulness of psychographic, demographic, and economic
characteristics based on consumer evaluation for eco-friendly products.
They pinpointed the perceived superiority of the psychographic char­
acteristics over the socio-demographic and economic ones in explaining
the environmentally-conscious consumer behavior and thus, the study
recommended the use of psychographic characteristics in profiling the
consumer segments in the market for eco-friendly products. The present
study adds perceived-benefit characteristics guided by blended psy­
chographic and socio-economic aspects for segmenting the consumer
market.
In a study by Plötz et al. (2014), the socio-demographic and psy­
chographic factors were used as segmentation themes and it was
asserted that the potential EV buyers were usually the middle-aged men
in a technical profession living in a rural or suburban multi-person
household. Moreover, their study revealed that the customers living in
big cities are less likely to purchase EVs. Another study by Ziegler (2012)
asserted that in the future, young people with environmental concerns
can be the target group for EVs adoption. In a multi-cultural study by
McLeay et al. (2018) covering Japanese, South Korean, and Australian
respondents, the authors described how social, psychological, time,
financial, and network-related risks along with product-related factors
driving purchasing behavior and influencing the consumer perception
towards the hybrid car. The study identified four segments
namely-casualists, optimists, realists, and pessimists based on environ­
mental self-image and cultural values. Using a socio-economic and
psychographic theme of segmenting the market, Morton et al. (2017)
argued that the identified segments hold a variety of preference levels
for EVs ranging from unwilling to enthusiasts. More so, they highlighted
that a host of varied reasons exists behind the consumers getting
attracted toward or fend off EVs in the identified clusters.
The literature on segmentation research clearly revealed that there
are two dominant approaches in the domain namely objective and
subjective of which the later offers an impinging influence. Conse­
quently, the research in the EV context discovered that majority of the
research is based on consumer preference-based segmentation (Albert
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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 67 (2022) 102969
and Maasoumy, 2016; Kubiczek and Hadasik, 2021; Mohamed et al.,
2016; Rezvani et al., 2015). In addition to the approaches discussed, it
can be argued that the psychological characteristics-based segmentation
for EV adopters is considered better as they are usually less influenced by
the past experiences with EVs (Axsen et al., 2018; Jensen et al., 2014;
Mahmoud and Hine, 2013). Also, the buying behavior theories revealed
that vehicle purchase is more of a household decision and not merely an
individual one in most cases, and in turn, their influence on the decision
cannot be obliterated. Moreover, the influence of society at large is also
impinging one in many cases. Thus, psychological models appear more
appropriate in capturing the external influence (Anable et al., 2011;
Mohamed et al., 2016; Moons and De Pelsmacker, 2012). Table 1
summarizes the studies on market segmentation for electric or related
vehicles in varied market settings.
2.2. Theoretical background and conceptual model
In order to explain the factors affecting the preference of EVs, a
number of behavioral theories have been in research discussion, some of
them are -diffusion of innovation theory or DIT (Rogers, 2003), tech­
nology acceptance model or TAM (Davis, 1989), theory of planned
behavior (TPB), theory of reasoned action or TRA (Ajzen and Fishbein,
1975) lay the research foundation. These theories were widely used to
investigate the behavioral intent and actual behavior of the consumer in
a given purchase situation (Kumar et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2016). TPB
is also an extensively used theory (Jaiswal and Kant, 2018) that can
affect consumers’ willingness through attitude, subjective norm, and
perceived behavioral control (Ajzen, 1991). DIT on the one hand, em­
phasizes that user innovativeness is affected by the hedonic, symbolic,
and instrumental attributes of EVs which can lead to a possibility of
adoption (Rogers, 2003; Schuitema et al., 2013; Verma et al., 2020).
TAM on the other hand, studies the extent to which perceived useful­
ness, and perceived ease of use can determine the behavioral intent (Wu
et al., 2019).
A host of factors such as perceptual, attitudinal, behavioral, and
societal direct the acceptance or rejection of EVs and the complexity due
to intricate relationships among behavioral dynamics. This can be
arguable that there cannot be an all-encompassing theoretical frame­
work that operationalize all the factors simultaneously. Nonetheless, our
study adopts an extended TRA and TAM to account for additional con­
structs (Mohamed et al., 2016). For the product context of EVs, one of
the most suited theories explaining consumer behavior can be the TAM
which is originated from TRA and TPB (Wu et al., 2019). Moreover,
some scholars discussed extended TAM or TAM2 which includes sub­
jective norms as an external construct (The extant body of literature
revealed that TAM and its extended models were extensively used to
analyze the acceptance of new technologies in the vehicle category. Choi
and Ji (2015) have studied the significance of trust in the preference of
autonomous vehicles and the acceptance of car navigation systems, and
several other constructs were studied using TAM by Park et al. (2015).
In TAM, perceived usefulness is one of the components that denotes
the degree to which a specific system or technology can enhance the
overall work performance. Perceived usefulness has a direct influence
on the attitude of an individual towards the technology and its accep­
tance (Davis, 1989; Park et al., 2021). Perceived ease of use can be ar­
ticulated as the extent to which a system or a technology could be
considered free from mental or physical work (Su et al., 2020; Venkatesh
and Davis, 2000). The positive attitude formation and the likelihood of
technology acceptance depend heavily on the ability of the technology
to be of some utility to the individual (Liu et al., 2018). As far as EVs are
concerned, they are considered to be beneficial for individual consumers
vis-à-vis society at large. Thus, it can be argued that usefulness, ease of
use, financial incentives can be considered as the perceived benefits in
technology adoption by the consumers. Some studies explored the
impact of financial incentives policy and found that incentives have a
positive influence on consumers’ adoption intention, however, other
D. Jaiswal et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 67 (2022) 102969

Table 1
Summary of market segmentation literature on electric or related vehicles.
Author(s) Research Context Vehicle Type Approach/Methodology Segmentation Criteria/Variables

1 Gärling (2000) Sweden, Austria, Canada, and Electric vehicles (EVs) SEM, Cluster Analysis and ANOVA Socio-demographic, psycho-
Montreal graphic and behavioral variables
2 Oliver and Rosen USA Hybrid electric MANOVA and Cluster Analysis Environmental values, and
(2010) vehicles (HEVs) environmental self-efficacy
3 Nosi et al. (2014) Italy Full electric Vehicles Factor analysis, K means-clustering, Chi Squared Benefit. Demographic, Product
(FEVs) test and Kruskal Wallis, Dunn’s multiple knowledge, and attitude
comparison
4 Plötz et al. (2014) Germany Electric vehicles Cluster Analysis, Chi Squared test and t-test. Socio-demographic, psycho-
graphic and behavioral variables
5 Mohamed et al. Canada. Electric vehicles two-stage structural equation modelling Socio-economic, and demographic
(2016) segmentation
6 Morton et al. United Kingdom Electric Vehicles Two stage cluster Analysis Socio-economic and psychographic
(2017) profiles
7 Saleem et al. Pakistan Alternate Fuel Vehicle Hierarchical cluster and Discriminant analysis Demographic and psychographic
(2018) (AFVs)
8 McLeay et al. Australia, South Korea and Hybrid Car Principal component Analysis, Cluster Analysis, Behavioral and cultural dimensions
(2018) Japan and Descriptive Statistics
9 Cheng et al. Not specified Electric vehicles Theoretical and mathematical High end and Low end
(2019)
10 Shin et al. (2018) Korea Advanced and Multiple Discrete-Continuous Extreme Value Socio-demographic
alternate fuel vehicles (MDCEV) Model with cluster analysis
11 Potoglou et al. Germany, India, Japan, Sweden, Alternative-fuel Using Latent Class Discrete Choice Models, Not specified
(2020) UK and the US. vehicles Multinomial logit model
12 Kubiczek and Segmentation of Passenger Fully Electric Cars Hierarchical Cluster Analysis Four segments were identified-
Hadasik (2021) Electric Cars Market in Poland Premium, City, Small, and Sport

studies reported little influence of financial incentives (Eldeeb and
Mohamed, 2020; Liu et al., 2018; Wesseling et al., 2015).
Likewise, consumer knowledge about EVs also influences her adop­
tion attitude and intention (Degirmenci and Breitner, 2017). Familiarity
with some performance attributes of EVs such as driving comfort, ac­
celeration, usage cost, charging infrastructure, etc. enhances its
perceived benefit/usefulness, value orientation toward EVs (Gnann
et al., 2018; Liu et al., 2018), which in turn fosters a positive attitude
toward EVs and consequently leads to adoption intention. Moreover, a
strong association is observed between knowledge (Keller et al., 2021)
about the benefits, advantages of performance attributes, and perceived
usefulness (Jaiswal et al., 2021a; Su et al., 2020). Attitude towards EVs
adoption and adoption intentions are also influenced by subjective
norms and these norms refer to one’s perception of the social pressure
from the reference group to which he/she belongs (Ajzen, 1991). Studies
in the past have shown that behavioral intentions are influenced by
subjective norms to a greater extent (Castanier et al., 2013; Rezvani
et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2016).
In the process of segmenting the consumer markets, besides the
psychographic and behavioral characteristics discussed above, socio-
economic attributes such as age, gender, education, income, and type
of vehicle owned also play a considerable role. In a study by Lee et al.
(2019), it was observed that variables such as income and age can be
used as a variable for segmenting EV consumers. They have identified
four distinct groups of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) based on income
and age and asserted that mid/high and middle-income clusters have
huge potential demand for EVs. Similarly, Peters and Dütschke (2014)
reported that socio-demographic characteristics along with perception
and willingness to pay to determine consumers’ likelihood of purchasing
an EVs differ. In determining the intention to buy, factors such as edu­
cation level also emerge as an important variable (Mukherjee and Ryan,
2020; Potoglou et al., 2020). As asserted by Mohamed et al. (2016),
highly educated young middle-aged consumers tend to be willing to buy
an additional vehicle in near future. Analysing the eco-friendly con­
sumption behavior, Hackbarth and Madlener (2013) and McLeay et al.
(2018) have confirmed that major adopters of hybrid or alternative fuel
vehicles are younger ones possessing higher education (Morton et al.,
2017).
It was observed that young consumers with higher education levels
and high and middle income are more likely to have a favorable attitude
and the resultant purchase intent toward EVs in a multi-cultural context
(Gulzari et al., 2022; Mohamed et al., 2016; Potoglou et al., 2020). The
findings of the past studies concur that attitude, perception, motivation
to adopt an innovation differ across age, gender, and education (Egbue
and Long, 2012). The consumer segmentation based on benefit also
considered factors such as gender, age, education, occupation, and
macro-region most vital (Nosi et al., 2014). Thus, it can be asserted that
psychographic and behavioral characteristics coupled with
socio-economic variables act as powerful predictors of adoption inten­
tion and therefore, help in classifying and profiling young-educated
consumers for segmentation as depicted in the conceptual model in
Fig. 1.
3. Research method
The methods section comprises the modus operandi to answer the
research question. This section discusses the sampling and data collec­
tion design followed by research measures with their respective opera­
tional definition and measurement items.
3.1. Sample and data collection
The present study employed a cross-sectional approach involving
directed the email-based online survey. In a meta-analysis by Singh et al.
(2020), it was observed that the studies on EVs typically followed a
cross-sectional approach. In addition, an online survey strategy qualifies
to a maximum coverage of geographical area timely and economically
(Paul et al., 2016), which may represent young adults and educated
population of ‘PAN’ (Presence Across Nation) India. Therefore, an online
survey was administrated to gather the responses from educated young
respondents of interest i.e., the millennials and Gen Z (age 18 or older) in
India.
The survey procedure entailed the filling-up of the questionnaire
made available via directed emails using networks of academic frater­
nities to young consumers. In the first phase of the sampling process,
respondents from Delhi NCR (National Capital Region, India) were
selected. NCR is the nation’s massive metropolitan region and one of the
world’s largest urban agglomerations with a population of over 46
million (Census, 2011) with the high churning rate of a young and
educated population. In the second phase, out of various higher

4
D. Jaiswal et al.
Fig. 1. The conceptual model: Market segmentation for EVs.
education institutions located in the region, some were selected based
on the geo-socio-demographic diversity so as to ensure the representa­
tion of the young adult and educated segment of the population. The
selection was done in consultation with the academic experts in some of
these institutions and the annual data published by the Ministry of Ed­
ucation (AISHE, 2019). Finally, the respondents were contacted through
academic facilitators from the selected institutions to collect the data
from these young and educated adults under their supervision. The re­
spondents were asked to complete the survey within 10 min which was
used as a control measure to avoid repetition of responses and response
bias.
The reason behind selecting young consumers using an online survey
was due to their familiarity with internet technology and readiness to
accept innovative and sustainable products including EVs (Ladhari et al.,
2019; Moshood et al., 2022; Policarpo and Aguiar, 2020). Scholars
(Degirmenci and Breitner, 2017; Sovacool et al., 2018) noted that young
consumers should be treated as early adopters in their local market
setting for EVs. As they are being technology enthusiasts and concerned
for the environment are more likely to be the early adopters of EVs
(Gulzari et al., 2022; Plötz et al., 2014). Moreover, the vehicle purchase
is a household decision that is heavily influenced by the millennials or
young individuals in their family as influencers or early adopters
(Degirmenci and Breitner, 2017; Young and Hinesly, 2012). Aligning to
this perspective, EVs have been considered as eco-friendly vehicles or
low emission vehicles in the present study. Thus, the authors argued that
young adults and educated groups would be considered as prospective
Indian buyers of EVs in the near future. A total of 590 responses were
received, out of which only 563 useable responses were obtained for
analysis after discarding invalid questionnaires. The sample of 563 (563
> 26*15 = 390) was suitable to perform multivariate analysis like factor
and cluster analysis as per the guidelines of a required level of 15 ob­
servations per item recommended by scholars (Kline, 2015; Malhotra
and Birks, 2007; Mooi and Sarstedt, 2011). Moreover, the sample has a
considerable representation of all demographic variables used in this
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Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 67 (2022) 102969
study. Therefore, the authors are of the view that the sample size of 563
has explained acceptably the target population of interests which aligns
with recent segmentation studies (Saleem et al., 2018; Jaiswal et al.,
2021b).
The socio-economic information of respondents revealed that
gender-wise 56.5% were males and 43.5% were females. All the par­
ticipants were young adults (Millenials and Gen Z), a majority (97.9%)
were below the age of 36 years, which ensures minors were not part of
this study (age 18 or older). For educational background, almost all
respondents were enrolled either in graduate or post-graduate courses
(94.1%), while only 5.9% were pursuing Ph.D. Information related to
monthly household income indicated that 24.9%, 27.5%, 26.8% of re­
spondents belonging to the income group below INR 25000, between
INR 25001–INR 50000, and between INR 50001–INR 75000 respec­
tively while only 20.8% participants reported belonging to the income
group above INR 75000. With respect to the vehicle type possessed by
family, 45.5% of respondents owned two-wheelers, whereas 35.5% and
13.8% of participants possessed economy and premium cars respectively
such as sedans and luxury cars. Nonetheless, only 5.2% of participants
did not possess any type of vehicle. Based on the numbers of vehicles
possessed by a household, 45.6% of respondents were reported pos­
sessing a vehicle, whereas 32.3% and 16.9% of the total sample having
two and more than two vehicles respectively in their family.
3.2. Research measures
For operationalization of the conceptual model of market segmen­
tation for EVs, the survey questionnaire was designed in the English
language based on pre-validated measurement items, thereafter it was
administrated online to gather the data from the target population i.e.,
millennials in India. Prior to administering, the questionnaire was pro­
cessed through the opinion of subject experts and pilot testing to over­
come the potential errors of field study and constructs measurement in
succeeding phases of analysis.
D. Jaiswal et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 67 (2022) 102969

The survey instrument comprised of three parts: first, a short Table 3

appreciation text to the participants ensuring the bona fide academic List of measurement items and sources: Results of EFA.
and research intention and confidentiality assurance clear. Second, the Construct Items and Component
socio-economic information consisting of age, gender, education, in­ Sources
KN SN INT FP PU EU AT
come, type of vehicle used, and numbers of vehicles possessed, which
were categorical in nature and acted as controlled variables. Lastly, Knowledge (KN) Wang et al. (2018), Mostafa (2007)
I am familiar with the .884
seven-point Likert-type scale items of all seven constructs were asked performance of
ranging between ‘strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘strongly agree’ (7) to capture electric vehicles
the test variables for the clustering procedure. In this context, the (such as charging
operational definition of all seven test variables was presented in Table 2 time, acceleration,
driving comfort,
followed by Table 3, which reports the list of measurement items of
and driving range).
underlying constructs along with its sources (Chen, 2016; Han et al., I am familiar with the .872
2017; Mostafa, 2007; Paul et al., 2016; Venkatesh and Davis, 2000; usage cost of
Wang et al., 2018). electric vehicles.
I know the .869
environmental
4. Analysis and results advantages of
electric vehicles
The data analysis was performed in several stages which comprised over the
assessment of exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor conventional
vehicles.
analysis (CFA), cluster analysis, and multiple discriminant analysis
I know more about .847
(MDA) followed by Chi-square test for socio-economic profiling of each electric vehicles
cluster solution. than the average
To begin with, the data were scrutinized to check for missing values, person.
outliers, normality, and bias-related issues using z score, skewness, I am familiar with the .884
performance of
kurtosis which were found adequate based on the recommended electric vehicles
guideline (Hair et al., 2015; Mooi and Sarstedt, 2011). In a similar vein, (such as charging
CMB was analysed prior to testing factor analysis (EFA & CFA). The time, acceleration,
value of Harman’s single factor was applied to assess the CMB in which driving comfort,
and driving range).
all scale items were run into a single common factor. In a similar vein,
Subjective norms (SN) Paul et al. (2016), Wang et al. (2016)
the results confirmed that all the measurement items were divided into Most people who I .824
seven constructs, the eigenvalues of which exceeded 1.0 and accounting consider important
for about 76.91% of the cumulative variance, shown in Table 3. The first think I should
construct is recoded with 31.91% of the variance, which was lower than adopt an EV.
Most people who I .809
the threshold limit of 50% recommended by Podsakoff et al. (2003). consider important
Therefore, the results confirmed that CMB is not an issue for succeeding would want me to
adopt an EV.
People whose .792
Table 2 opinions I value
The operational definition of test variables. would prefer that I
adopt an EV.
Test variables Operational definition
My interaction with .786
Perceived usefulness This measure refers to individual perception toward the people influences
(PU) usage of EV as innovative technology and the extent to me to adopt an EV.
which this vehicle will be of utility in energy performance, Intention (INT) Han et al. (2017), Mostafa. (2007)
reducing carbon emission, pro-healthier, saving I am willing to adopt .845
transportation cost, and travel performance. EVs while choosing
Perceived ease of use It refers to the individual favorable belief that the usage of a vehicle in the
(PE) EV as an innovative product will be easy to drive, simple to near future.
understand the functionality, user friendly, and may cause I plan to adopt EVs .838
less physical and mental fatigue. while choosing a
Attitude towards EVs This is an individual’s psychological predisposition or vehicle in the near
(AT) beliefs that are consistently evaluated in terms of his/her future.
likes or dislikes, or positive or negative feelings toward the I intend to adopt EVs .822
usage of EVs and their adoption. when choosing a
Subjective norms (SN) This measure refers to social pressure or influence on an vehicle in the near
individual’s decision to adopt EVs that resulting from other future.
people who are close to his/her personal and social life, I would like to .794
such may be family members, close friends, peers’ group, recommend others
working partners, etc. adopt EVs when
Knowledge about EVs This refers to the individual information-seeking process they plan to choose
(KN) and cognitive ability to understand the usage performance, a vehicle.
usage cost, and environmental advantages of EVs. Incentives Policy (FP) Wang et al. (2018)
Financial incentives This measure refers to individual perception pertaining to Subsidy policy will .809
policy (FP) the importance of pecuniary and non-pecuniary stimuli like encourage for
straight subsidies on purchase, tax relief and charging adopting EVs.
infrastructure augmentation, etc., which should be Relaxation in tax .795
provided by the government or other institutions to policies will be
encourage EVs preference. helpful to adopt
Adoption intention for It refers to an individual’s expressed willingness or EVs.
EV (INT) readiness to adopt EVs in the near future and thus, such To me, subsidy and .793
intent behavior of an individual is more likely to transform tax policies are
into his/her adoption decision for these vehicles. (continued on next page)

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D. Jaiswal et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 67 (2022) 102969

Table 3 (continued ) Table 4

Construct Items and Component
Confirmatory factor analysis: Results of construct reliability and validity.
Sources Construct Item Loading Cronbach’s Average Composite
KN SN INT FP PU EU AT
alpha variance reliability
important for extracted
purchasing EVs.
Intention AI1 .852 .910 .717 .910
Other incentives .780
AI2 .862
should be provided
AI3 .858
by the government
AI4 .813
for using EVs.
Attitude AT1 .823 .849 .653 .849
Usefulness (PU) Wang et al. (2018), Chen (2016), Venkatesh and Davis (2000)
AT2 .767
The use of EVs would .830
AT3 .832
reduce carbon
Incentives FP1 .806 .860 .608 .861
emissions and
Policy FP2 .787
energy
FP3 .782
consumption
FP4 .742
The use of EVs would .818
Knowledge KN1 .880 .928 .763 .928
make me healthier.
KN2 .880
The use of EVs would .783
KN3 .872
reduce my
KN4 .861
transportation
Ease of Use PE1 .835 .859 .673 .860
specific household
PE2 .825
expenditures
PE3 .800
The use of EVs would .736
Usefulness PU1 .792 .862 .612 .863
improve my travel
PU2 .808
efficiency.
PU3 .769
Ease of use (EU) Wang et al. (2018), Venkatesh and Davis (2000)
PU4 .759
It would be simple to .833
Subjective SN1 .838 .904 .704 .905
use EVs.
Norms SN2 .891
It would be easy for .829
SN3 .826
me to drive EVs.
SN4 .798
My encounter with .798
EVs would be clear Measurement model fit indices: (Chi square/df = 1.76, GF I = 0.937, AGFI =
and 0.921, IFI = 0.978, NFI = 0.950, CFI = 0.977, RMSEA = 0.037).
understandable.
Attitude (AT) Han et al. (2017), Wang et al. (2018)
I am interested in .827 results satisfy the convergence consistency of scale reliability.
EVs. For the further step of validity assessment, convergent and discrim­
I like the idea of .725
inant validities of underlying measures were tested. Convergent validity
using EVs.
It gives me a positive .695 was analysed by average variance extracted (AVE) and factor loadings of
feeling to adopt each construct. Table 4 presents that the AVE of each construct (ranging
EVs as one of my from .612 to .763) is greater than the cut-off value of 0.50 suggested by
travel choices. Fornell and Larcker (1981) and Hair et al. (2015), which have been
Total Variance 76.911
found to be well accepted. The factor loadings of all measurement items
K-M-O Measure of Sampling Adequacy .910
Bartlett’s Test of Approx. Chi-Square 9621.09 were greater (ranging from 0.767 to 0.891) than the threshold value of
Sphericity df 325 0.50. Thus, the results of factor loadings confirmed the adequacy of the
Sig. 0.000 structure of constructs and dimensionality of the measurement items
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. (Churchill, 1979; Hair et al., 2015). Thus, the results of AVE and factor
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. loadings satisfy the appropriateness of convergent validity. In addition,
a.Rotation converged in 6 iterations. CFA was also analysed by testing goodness-of-fit measures to assess the
Note: All items were scaled on a 7-point Likert-type scale with a range from measurement model fit. It is also shown in Table 4 that model fit indices
‘strongly disagree’ (1) to ‘strongly agree’ (7). were found to be adequate such as Chi-square/df = 1.76, GFI = 0.937,
AGFI = 0.921, IFI = 0.978, NFI = 0.950, CFI = 0.977, RMSEA = 0.037,
stages of empirical analysis in this study. Hence, the above results based on the threshold value suggested by Hair et al. (2015) and Kline
indicate that there is no sampling error and potential biases present in (2015). In a similar vein, the discriminant validity was analysed using
the data. the method suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981). Table 5 exhibits
that the AVE of each construct is found to be greater than its
4.1. Confirmatory factor analysis inter-construct correlations, which confirmed the discriminant validity
of the measures.
All the construct items were based on pre-validated measures ob­
tained from the available literature related to EVs adoption. Thus, CFA 4.2. Cluster analysis
was conducted using AMOS 26 with the maximum likelihood estimation
(MLE) method to test the underlying constructs’ reliability, validity, and After satisfying the adequacy of reliability and validity assessment, a
structural dimensionality. First, the constructs’ reliability was analysed two-stage of clustering procedure was analysed using SPSS 26 with
using the reliability measures of Cronbach’s alpha and composite reli­ seven underlying constructs as clustering variables. This analytical
ability (CR). Table 4 presents that Cronbach’s α values of all latent approach is one of the most robust methods which has been widely
constructs range from 0.849 to 0.928, which exceeds the threshold of adopted and recommended for analyzing segmentation models
0.70, suggested by (Kline, 2015; Sands et al., 2016). This confirmed the including electric or related vehicles consumer market (Brand et al.,
adequacy of internal consistency of constructs’ reliability. Additionally, 2020; Hair et al., 2015; Mooi and Sarstedt, 2011; Morton et al., 2017;
Table 4 showed that the value of CR for all underlying constructs ranged Priessner et al., 2018). However, scholars (Depaire et al., 2008; Eldeeb
between 0.860 and 0.928, which exceeded the verge of 0.70, recom­ and Mohamed, 2020; Potoglou et al., 2020) applied the other variants of
mended by (Malhotra and Birks, 2007; Sands et al., 2016). Thus, the classification models (latent class, discrete choice, and/or hybrid

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D. Jaiswal et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 67 (2022) 102969

Table 5
Results of discriminate validity.
Mean S.D. AT KN PU FP PE SN AI

AT 5.73 1.04 .808

KN 5.28 1.48 .252 .873
PU 5.66 1.04 .277 .368 .782
FP 5.71 1.01 .645 .214 .246 .780
PE 5.61 1.08 .299 .459 .481 .220 .820
SN 5.38 1.15 .721 .335 .371 .581 .302 .839
AI 5.64 1.09 .430 .389 .525 .279 .484 .368 .846

Note: The diagonal elements (bold) represent the square roots of AVEs, and the off-diagonal elements indicate the correlations among constructs.

models) for segmenting the transport market increase in the context of

Table 7
traffic psychology and travel service quality research.
Discriminant analysis: Tests of equality of group means.
In the first stage, a hierarchical clustering procedure was used to
reach the plausible clustering solutions using Ward’s linkage method Constructs Wilks’ Lambda F Sig.
with agglomeration coefficient, which was adopted by scholars in their Knowledge .613 176.690 .000
respective studies (Brand et al., 2020; Jansson et al., 2009; Jaiswal et al., Usefulness .624 168.626 .000
2021b). As a result of this robust analytical procedure, the three cluster Ease of Use .701 119.441 .000
Incentives Policy .603 183.999 .000
solutions were found to be the most suitable after considering the per­ Subjective Norms .549 229.887 .000
centage of variance in heterogeneity stopping rule recommended by Attitude .601 186.034 .000
Hair et al. (2015) and Mooi and Sarstedt (2011). In the next phase, a Intention .601 185.579 .000
non-hierarchical procedure was performed for analyzing cluster mem­
bership using the K-means algorithm based on the standard value (z
score) of all seven clustering variables. The summary of the three Table 8
distinct cluster memberships was presented in Table 6, in which 15.1%, Canonical discriminant functions: A Summary.
24.5% and 60.4% of respondents are related to Cluster 1, Cluster 2, and Function Eigen value Wilks’ Lambda Chi-square df Sig.
Cluster 3 respectively.
1 2.427 .160 1020.672 14 .000
2 .824 .548 334.673 6 .000

4.3. Multiple discriminant analysis

function 2 (λ = 0.548, χ2 = 334.673).
After obtaining the three cluster solutions in the previous section, the Additionally, the structure matrix was analysed to estimate the
next phase comprises several tests related to multiple discriminant comparative contribution of each construct with respect to discriminant
analysis (MDA) to assess the discriminant capability of test variables and functions. Table 9 presents that all test variables are significantly related
validate the results of cluster memberships. The procedure of MDA was to function 1, except financial incentives policy and attitude towards
performed, first, the ‘Wilks’ lambda test was conducted for analyzing the EVs. The results revealed that the financial incentives policy (r = 0.631)
quality of group means. Table 7 presents that the three clusters are had the highest relative correlation with discriminant function 2 fol­
significantly different from each other (p < .001) with respect to all lowed by attitude towards EVs (r = 0.538). While subjective norms (r =
seven constructs. In addition, the results revealed that the measure of 0.523), adoption intention for EVs (r = 0.520), knowledge about EVs (r
subjective norms (λ = 0.549, F = 229.887) was found to be with highest = 0.471), perceived usefulness (r = 0.464), and so on which has shown a
significant discriminant ability across the three groups followed by high correlation with function 1.
attitude towards EVs (λ = 0.601, F = 186.034), adoption intention for Similarly, Table 10 summarizes the accuracy of classification results.
EVs (λ = 0.601, F = 185.579), and knowledge about EVs (λ = 0.613, F = The off diagonals show that 87.1%, 87.0%, and 99.4% cases were
176.690). Whilst perceived ease of use had the lowest discriminant correctly classified into cluster 1, cluster 2, and cluster 3 respectively.
power (λ = 0.701, F = 119.441), reported in Table 7. The results confirmed that 94.5% of original grouped cases were
Likewise, Table 8 summarizes the results of the canonical discrimi­ correctly classified into their respective clusters via the procedures of
nant functions (both) with significant value (p < .001) for explaining the cluster and discriminant analysis. The findings were observed to be
differences between the groups (Hair et al., 2015; Malhotra and Birks, synchronous with the contemporary segmentation research using the
2007). The results indicated that function 1 (λ = 0.160, χ2 = 1020.672) cluster approach (Jaiswal et al., 2021b; Saleem et al., 2018). Thus, the
explained a higher number of variations between the three clusters than results validate their robustness and appropriateness (Malhotra and
Birks, 2007; Mooi and Sarstedt, 2011).
Table 6
Results of three cluster solutions (Total sample (N) = 563).
Test variables Cluster 1 (15.1%) Cluster 2 (24.5%) Cluster 3 (60.4%) Table 9
n1 = 85 n2 = 138 n3 = 340
Structure matrix.
Knowledge − 1.3804 -.1252 .3959
Constructs Function 1 Function 2
Usefulness − 1.3501 -.1448 .3963
Ease of Use − 1.1946 -.1478 .3586 Knowledge .471* -.336
Incentives -.0496 − 1.0624 .4436 Usefulness .464* -.313
Policy Ease of Use .393* -.250
Subjective -.5680 -.9665 .5343 Incentives Policy .368 .631*
Norms Subjective Norms .523* .437
Attitude -.2621 − 1.0121 .4763 Attitude .419 .538*
Intention − 1.1914 -.4379 .4756 Intention .520* -.092

Note: Cluster means are based on z scores. N = Total sample of respondents Note: *Largest absolute correlation between each variable and any discriminant
(n1+n2+n3). function.

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D. Jaiswal et al. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 67 (2022) 102969

Table 10 related advantages and attributes. Moreover, they have a very negative
Classification results. belief about EVs usefulness (− 1.350) and ease of use (− 1.195) in terms
Original Cluster Predicted Group Membership Total of being pro-healthy, eco-friendly (low emission), pocket friendly (fuel
cost-saving), and user-friendly (driving easiness). While subjective
Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3
norms (− 0.568) and EVs attitude (− 0.262) were also perceived nega­
1 Cluster 74 (87.1%) 6 (7.1%) 5 (5.9%) 85 (100%) tively by conservatives towards the potential usage of EVs. In addition,
2 Cluster 1 (.7%) 120 (87.0%) 17 (12.3%) 138 (100%)
3 Cluster 2 (.6%) 0 (0%) 338 (99.4%) 340 (100%)
they have shown very adverse willingness to adopt or buy EVs (− 1.191)
in a near future. This indicates that social or peer group influences are
Note: 94.5% of original grouped cases correctly classified [(74 + 120+338)/ also ineffective in positive attitude formation and adoption intention for
563 = 94.5%].
EVs in the near future. Whilst financial incentives policy (− .0496) was
perceived slightly negative towards the EVs preference by conservatives.
4.4. Chi-square test Thus, incentives policies such as purchase subsidy, tax rebate and other
financial benefits were not appealing to Conservatives in order to adopt
Finally, the socio-economic characterization of three clusters was or buy EVs.
analysed using the bi-variate technique of Pearson’s Chi-square test with As far as socio-economic characterization (controlled variables) is
cross-tabulation for all control variables used in the analysis. The control concerned, conservatives are mainly attributed to the majority of males
variables include gender, age, education, income, types of vehicles (56.5%) and graduate respondents (68.2%), who are mostly below the
owned, numbers of vehicles owned, which were not analysed in the age of 27 (81.2%). In this segment, 28.2% of respondents fall in the
previous procedures of the multivariate approach of cluster and income group of above 75,000 INR, which is greater than any other
discriminant analysis. Thus, the Pearson’s Chi-square (χ2) test was segments with the same income group in the study. In addition, 49.4%
conducted to determine the significant differences between all cate­ and 32.9% of conservatives are having two-wheelers and economy four-
gorical variables across the three distinct segments. Table 11 showed wheelers respectively. Besides this, 23.4% of this segment owns more
that all the categorical variables had highly significant scores (p < .001), than two vehicles, while 11.8% of respondents of this segment were
except for the ‘age’ and ‘education’ which were not observed to be reported that their family does not have a single vehicle, shown in
significant for discriminating across the three distinctive segments. Table 11.

4.5. Results of segments’ labelling and profiling 4.5.2. Segment 2: indifferents

Based on the results pertaining to test and control variables, the three
distinct sets of consumer groups (segments) were identified. Thus, the
description of their labelling is mentioned below:
4.5.1. Segment 1: conservatives
The first cluster (15.1% of the sample) labelled as ‘Conservatives’ has
been identified as the smallest distinct group in this study, which shows
extremely unfavorable perception towards almost all the test variables.
The results demonstrate that respondents of this segment are having
very low product-specific knowledge about EVs (− 1.380) and their
This distinct group has emerged as the second-largest cluster (24.5%
of the study cases, labelled as ‘Indifferents’). The results show that most
of the test variables were perceived slightly negatively by this consumer
group which indicates declivity towards EVs acceptance in their future
choice, except for the financial incentives policy (− 1.062) and attitude
towards EVs (− 1.012). These two were perceived very unfavorably by
this segment. The findings indicate that financial incentives with atti­
tude do not act as a driver for adopting EVs, and thus, repudiated by the
indifferents. While subjective norm (− 0.967) was also perceived nega­
tively by indifferents, which specified that social influences like family,

Table 11
Consumer profile of the segments.
Profiling Socio-Demographic Variables Cluster 1- ‘Conservatives’ n1 Cluster 2- ‘Indifferents’ n2 Cluster 3-‘Enthusiasts’ n3 = Total n = 563 Chi-Square
= 85 (15.1%) = 138 (24.5%) 340 (60.4%) (100%) statistics

Gender Male 56.5% 41.3% 64.1% 57.4% 20.92**

Female 43.5% 58.7% 35.9% 42.6%
Age 18–26 81.2% 84.8% 78.5% 80.5% 3.73ns
27–35 15.3% 13.0% 19.7% 17.4%
36 and Above 3.5% 2.2% 1.8% 2.1%
Education level Bachelor degree 68.2% 76.1% 69.4% 70.9% 5.18ns
Master degree 24.7% 21.7% 23.5% 23.3%
Ph.D. 7.1% 2.2% 7.1% 5.9%
Monthly Family Income Less than INR 28.2% 29.7% 22.1% 24.9% 33.34**
25,000
INR 25,001- INR 32.9% 35.5% 22.9% 27.5%
50,000
INR 50, 001- INR 10.6% 17.4% 34.7% 26.8%
75,000
More than 28.2% 17.4% 20.3% 20.8%
INR75,000
Types of vehicles owned Two-wheelers 49.4% 55.1% 40.6% 45.5% 30.92**
in family Economy four- 32.9% 29% 38.8% 35.5%
wheelers
Premium four- 5.9% 8.7% 17.9% 13.8%
wheelers
None 11.8% 7.2% 2.6% 5.2%
Numbers of vehicles Zero 11.8% 7.2% 2.6% 5.2% 33.52**
possessed in family 1 30.7% 33.4% 54.4% 45.6%
2 34.1% 36.2% 30.4% 32.3%
>2 23.4% 23.2% 12.6% 16.9%

**p value < .001, ns = not significant.

9
D. Jaiswal et al.
friends, or peer group are not effective in persuading for EVs adoption.
Notwithstanding, this segment is slightly different from those having a
positive opinion to prefer EVs, and thus, shows their impassive will­
ingness to adopt such vehicles (− .438) in near future.
Table 11 presents a socio-economic profile of Indifferents, which is
mainly characterized by the exceeding percentage of females (58.7%)
over males (41.3%) compared to other groups in the study. The results
indicate that 84.8% of ‘Indifferents’ are youth adults below the age of 27
years, and they are almost (97.8%) either graduated or post graduated.
In addition, 55.1% of the ‘Indifferents’ own two-wheelers i.e., the higher
than the other segments, followed by economy four-wheelers (29%).
While 7.2% of this segment was reported no vehicles owned of any type.
In addition, 35.5% of Indifferents belong to the monthly income group
of 25,001 to 50,000 INR, which is the highest percentage among all
segments within the same income group.
4.5.3. Segment 3: enthusiasts
This cluster has emerged as the largest distinctive group (60.4% of
the sample), which is labelled as ‘Enthusiasts’, shows their positive and
favorable beliefs towards all test variables of consumers’ EVs acceptance
in this consumer classification study. The results demonstrate that this
segment is the only distinctive group, contrary to segment 1 and
segment 2, which have a positive perception of EVs preference as their
forthcoming choice. This distinctive group has proper awareness and
information pertaining to specific knowledge about EVs (.396). Con­
sumers of this segment expressed their positive beliefs towards the
performance and eco-friendly utilities of EVs (0.396) as well as its user-
friendly attributes and driving comfort (0.359). Additionally, the sample
of this segment has shown their positive attitude towards EVs (0.476)
and they also expressed their willingness to adopt such vehicles (0.478)
in the forthcoming shopping choice. Finally, the clustering variables of
subjective norms (0.534) and financial incentives policy (0.444) were
also perceived positively for EVs preference by the sample of cluster 3.
This specifies that social influence such as friends and family members
along with the external incentive stimulus by government and other
channels has a greater impact on segment 3 consumers’ group to accept
EVs in their desired forthcoming option.
Table 11 shows the socio-economic profile of cluster 3 which is
characterized by a majority of male respondents (64.1%) with larger
youths aged below 36 (98.2%) than the other two segments profile of
such attributes. The results of cluster 3 show that most of the re­
spondents are either graduate or postgraduate with the highest per­
centage of the doctorate (7.1%) as compared to other competing cluster
profiles. While most of the sample of this segment is related to the in­
come group of INR 25,001 to INR 50,000 (35.5%) and INR 50, 001- INR
75,000 (34.7%) respectively, i.e., the highest percentage among all
segments with the same income groups. In addition, 56.7% ‘Enthusiasts’
have owned four-wheelers either economy type or premium type of car
as well, thus, is found to be the largest percentage of related socio-
economic attributes among all segments. Besides, this segment has
owned two-wheelers (55.1%) i.e., the maximum percentage than the
other segments, while 7.2% of this distinctive group has reported no
vehicles owned of any type.
5. Discussion and implications
The present segmentation study illustrates how self-expressed ben­
efits and behavioral characterization play an important role in classi­
fying potential EVs consumers into a distinct set of clusters and their
profiling using socio-economic characterization for millennials and Gen
Z in India. The study adopted robust analytical procedures using
multivariate and bi-variate techniques, such as CFA, clustering, and
multiple discriminant approach followed by Pearson’s Chi-square test to
classify, validate and profile potential EV consumers’ segments respec­
tively in an emerging mobility market. The study approached the
comprehensive framework of ‘self-expressed benefits-attitude-intention’
10
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 67 (2022) 102969
originated from social cognitive theories such as TRA, TPB, and TAM,
etc. They were mostly adapted in the recent literature on EVs acceptance
(Policarpo and Aguiar, 2020; Wu et al., 2019).
The seven test variables vis-à-vis knowledge about EVs’ usefulness,
ease of use, financial incentives, attitude towards EVs, subjective norm,
and adoption intention have been analysed to identify and validate three
sets of homogenous groups through the procedures of the cluster
approach and MDA. For instance, usefulness, ease of use, and incentives
policy are related to individuals’ perceived benefits of EVs (extended
TAM), while attitude, subjective norms, and knowledge are associated
with attitudinal values for EVs preference (extended TRA), which in turn
may affect their expressed willingness to adopt these vehicles as
behavioral attribute in the near future. In addition, the Chi-square test
with cross-tabulation of all six socio-economic characteristics was
adapted to determine the significant differences between control vari­
ables across the three distinct clusters. Thus, gender, household income,
types of vehicles, number of vehicles owned were significant and the
findings to some extent were in sync with the previous studies (Saleem
et al., 2018). Therefore, it can be asserted that psychographic and
behavioral characteristics coupled with socio-economic variables act
influentially in shaping EV adoption behavior and enable consumers’
classification and profiling.
The discussed attributes in the study were analysed using multivar­
iate and bivariate techniques. Consequently, the three segments have
been identified, labelled as ‘Conservatives’, ‘Indifferents’ and ‘Enthusi­
asts’. Thus, the ‘Enthusiasts’ has emerged as the largest segment (60.4%)
followed by ‘Indifferents’ (24.5%), and the ‘Conservatives’ (15.1%)
which are deemed to be EVs prospects in the Indian mobility market.
The outcome of this paper supports partly in consonance with the recent
EV segmentation studies by Kubiczek and Hadasik (2021); Plötz et al.
(2014). In addition, the findings suggest that ‘Enthusiasts’ is the largest
distinct group characterized by higher perceived benefits, attitude, and
intention toward the potential usage of EVs, who may be considered as
early adopters if they are reinforced by financial and social inducement.
Based on the observed attributes, the authors argued that early adopters
are more effective than potential adopters (‘Conservatives’ and ’In­
differents’) to buy automobiles in present and near future. To some
extent, the observation is pursuant to the previous studies (Priessner
et al., 2018). In line with the allied sub-sections of this study offer some
key insights to academic scholars, practitioners, and policymakers from
the lens of theoretical and policy implications.
5.1. Theoretical implications
First, this study proposes a novel perspective of potential buyer
taxonomy based on ‘cognitive-affective-behavioral’ facets of buying
behavior in general and the adoption of EVs in particular. It expounds a
study grounded in consumer base who in the near future may adopt EVs
which will lead to rising green technology with low emission automobile
markets. The theoretical underpinning emanated from the social
cognitive theories, increasingly adapted in recent environmental con­
sumer research (Plötz et al., 2014; Priessner et al., 2018). Second, the
study offers a comprehensive framework of market segmentation for the
forthcoming electric automobile market by integrating essential criteria
of perceived benefits attributes and socio-economic variables. Thus, the
study augments the existing literature of EV adoption by amalgamating
the micro model of consumer psychology using perceived benefits at­
tributes with classical macro indicators of consumers’ socio-economic
characterization (Wang et al., 2021).
Third, the classification outcome confirms that all test attributes
pertaining to consumers’ perceived benefits-attitude-intention play a
more vital role and are significant to recognize and categorize potential
EV buyers into three distinct sets of homogenous groups along with
socio-economic variables by employing multivariate and bi-variate
analytical approaches. Therefore, the result confirms the effectiveness
of psychographic and behavioral characterization based on ‘cognitive-
D. Jaiswal et al.
affective-behavioral’ interlinkages and verifies the same with few
limited segmentation studies in varied market contexts (Jaiswal et al.,
2021b; Priessner et al., 2018).
Fourth, the study presents an interesting piece of segmentation
research that classifies potential buyers of an emerging EV market based
on their perception of the social and cognitive motives for adopting EVs
including electric cars, e-bikes, and e-scooters, etc. Thus, it establishes
the foundation for forthcoming research towards sustainable trans­
portation in the emerging economy context. Finally, the study pioneers
with few studies concerning EV preference and adoption in the indige­
nous Indian context (Singh et al., 2020; Verma et al., 2020) with prima
facie emphasis on youth and educated adults who are existing users of
conventional energy vehicles including two-wheelers and
four-wheelers. Moreover, the household decision for buying a new
four-wheeler car or bike is immensely influenced by young-educated
adults in their household (Young and Hinesly, 2012). It highlights the
dominance of millennials as they are highly receptive to adopt advanced
and clean and green technology-based products such as EV which may
have possibly the important considerable segment as early adopters or
potential buyers for EV in the emerging automobile markets like India
by policymakers and manufacturers in the near future.
5.2. Policy implications
The study advances several policy implications taken into consider­
ation for the potential young EV buyers. Based on the observed attri­
butes, first, the social attribute of subjective norms was observed to be
having the highest discriminating power to distinguish a set of three
homogenous groups followed by the test variables of attitude towards
EVs, adoption intention, financial incentives policy, and EV knowledge.
The results indicate that other people including working partners, family
members, friends, who are close to individuals’ personal and social life
are more likely to influence their decision to adopt or buy EVs along with
their perceived positive values towards EVs acceptance. Potential buyers
can be influenced, only then, they are persuaded with their social net­
works such as their relatives, friend circles or peer group toward the
usage of EVs along with other values and financial stimulus. Considering
this viewpoint, marketers, and policymakers can promote EVs usage by
fostering young consumers’ positive values like social, cognitive, and
financial value aimed to have stimulated them to prefer these vehicles.
Second, the findings also exposed that ‘Enthusiasts’ emerged as the
largest segment having positive perception toward the usage benefits of
EVs, and comprises mostly young adults, male and user of four-wheelers.
The findings imply that ‘Enthusiasts’ are more likely to buy electric
vehicles as they could be easily targeted as early adopters by manufac­
turers with proper resource utilization of extrinsic incentive measures
like subsidy in the registration fee, rebates in battery usage, free toll tax
etc. (Gnann et al., 2018; Kester et al., 2020). Moreover, this segment
should be encouraged with informed intrinsic attributes of EVs benefits
such as saving fuel cost, and environmental conservation using higher
degrees of social persuasion and favorable attitude formation towards
the usage of such vehicles.
Third, the results explore that ‘Indifferents’ are the second-largest
distinct group, emerged with the neutral and slightly unfavorable
viewpoint of EVs adoption. Such a homogenous group could be trans­
formed into potential EV buyers with persuasive information conveying
key utilities of EVs usage such as its being pocket and eco-friendly.
Considering this segment, manufacturers would increasingly target the
young females as the potential buyers of EV through the persuasion
based on social and cognitive value formation supported by incentive
stimulus for adopting EVs particularly for electric two-wheelers such as
e-scooters and e-bikes. Presently, the Indian millennial population is
primarily characterized as educated, often ready to adopt newer tech­
nology, and considerably prefers a sustainable lifestyle (Ladhari et al.,
2019). They can become the early adopters of EVs for their new vehicle
choice and therefore, this young segment could be considered viable by
11
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 67 (2022) 102969
manufacturers as one of the major segments of potential EV users in an
evolving low emission transportation market.
Fourth, the government including various stakeholders at the central
and state levels should hold on to marketing campaigns to enhance
awareness, entice people’s interests, and educate them by highlighting
the potential benefits of EV and its pro-environmental and social con­
sequences. This would certainly push the demand for EVs among
younger educated population in the near future. Moreover, such planned
promotional efforts can also convince the ‘Conservatives’ and the ‘In­
differents’ to adopt EVs as their forthcoming choice. The policymakers
and marketing professionals should also employ social influence along
with financial incentives as external instruments in their integrated
marketing communication strategies. These should be coupled with
informing EVs’ potential benefits and their advanced features against
internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles while taking into consider­
ation the potential and early adopters to stimulate EV demand.
Furthermore, it should be incentivised along with advanced worthwhile
infrastructure (charging station, parking facility, low charging time,
spare parts availability etc.) will enable faster penetration of EVs in a
youth populated country like India (Tarei et al., 2021).
Fifth, at present the automobile industry accounts for 18% of total
energy consumption which estimates 142 million Tonnes of CO2 emis­
sions annually in India (Bureau of Energy Efficiency, 2021). Having
mentioned that, it can be argued that electric mobility is a viable
alternative energy transport solution in the pursuit of balancing energy
consumption and environmental sustainability. In this regard, the
availability of charging infrastructure and incentive motive is crucial for
accelerating EV usage in India. Bearing this in mind, the union gov­
ernment of India has further extended the Faster Adoption and
Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME II) policy by two
years till March 2024, and this is coupled with advanced changes in EV
policy and incentive structure, so as to accelerate the demand for
e-scooter and e-cars among target youth and educated section of coun­
try’s population (The new Indian express, 2021).
In addition, a recent decision by the Delhi government to manda­
torily replace all gasoline-based government vehicles (including owned
and hired) with EVs within six months from February 2021 as an
initiative to curb the menace of air pollution. Also, the government is
resolved to increase the share of EVs up to 25% of the total vehicles in
the state by the year 2024 (Delhi Electric Vehicle Policy, 2020). To
implement these decisions effectively, the government has been
re-engineering the demand side equation by expanding the charging
station network across the state and offering a hefty number of subsidies
on the purchase of EVs (including two and four-wheelers).
Such policy push is going to boost the demand for EVs among the
‘Enthusiast’, ‘indifferents’ and ‘conservatives’ sub-groups of potential
buyers. The demand side push will not only motivate the young con­
sumers to buy EVs (e-scooter and/or e-bike) but also increase the
number of adopters and will enable meeting the policy targets. At the
same time, reluctance to pay higher initial prices for EVs yet acts as a
major deterrent in EVs adoption among the conservative and indifferent
segment who trade-off between short-run and long-run payoffs. The
future policy may plan out segment specific measures such as price-
discrimination covering immediate and future payoffs coupled with
other extrinsic and intrinsic benefits to enhance the widespread adop­
tion of EVs.
Last but not the least, the research is guided by the SDGs. Thus, it can
be arguably stated that the triple bottom line of sustainability in the
transportation sector is derived from environmental, social, and eco­
nomic benefits which chiefly depend on energy policy related to forth­
coming mobility options such as EVs or HEVs. The usage of EV or related
technology vehicles would certainly foster inclusive paradigms of sus­
tainable transportation among youth in the long run vis-à-vis environ­
mentally friendly (less pollutant vehicle), community-friendly (socially
viable and admired automobile option), and economical (low operating
cost vehicle). Hence, encouraging EVs adoption among youth could be
D. Jaiswal et al.
one of the pertinent and stable approaches to save the planet, people,
and the economy as well from getting air polluted and thereby, reducing
dependency on gasoline energy (Peters et al., 2018), while managing the
dynamics of demand and supply in the automobile industry.
6. Conclusion, limitations, and future research
This study endeavoured to present EV taxonomy using an a-priori
approach to categorize potential EV buyers into sub-segments of young
and educated consumers and tested meticulously with a blended
approach of multivariate and bivariate techniques. In doing so, the study
incorporates perceived benefits attributes along with suggested socio­
economic variables to operationalize and test the conceptual model of
EV market segmentation, originated from cognitive and technological
behavior theories vis-a-vis, TRA, and TAM. In this way, the study utilised
crucial criteria of psychographic, behavioral, and socio-economic
characterization, resulted in three distinct segments labelled as ‘Con­
servatives’, ‘Indifferents’, and ‘Enthusiasts’.
The outcome verifies in the setting of the emerging electric transport
market like India aligns with rare classification studies on EV or related
eco-friendly automobiles in such diverse transportation markets. This
way, the considered linkage framework, and tested model unfolds novel
and interesting findings for emerging sustainable mobility and thus,
endorse the valuable contribution into the extant body of knowledge
pertaining to EV market segmentation and its potential resultant adop­
tion behavior. Hence, the present state-of-the-art research elucidates an
imperative segmentation model based on the linkage perspective of
‘perceived benefits-attitude-intention’ to identify and verify the poten­
tial EV users’ heterogeneity. Henceforth, this study advocates strategic
guidance to marketing professionals and policymakers within the pur­
view ‘STP’ in stimulating demand of low CO2 emission, low operating
cost, and energy-efficient vehicles soon of Indian electric mobility align
with worldwide initiative toward sustainable transportation aiming to
meet the targets sets under SDGs.
Although this segmentation study contributes theoretically and
validate in the backdrop of an emerging market along with offering
some possible inputs in the form of policy and managerial implications,
yet, few shortcomings were noted in the possible directions of forth­
coming research: first, the responses were collected predominantly from
a young population of interests who deemed to be the innovators and
early adopters of EVs in the near future using the cross-sectional
approach of quantitative research, which may restrict its generaliz­
ability. However, literature advocates that younger consumers (Gen Z
and millennials) are a greater degree of proclivity to espouse internet
technology and innovative products or green vehicles (e-scooters and e-
cars) rather than their older counterparts. The concept of EVs is still in a
nascent stage of its acceptance in the Indian market, therefore, further
research on this pretext can bring more clarity pertaining to its accep­
tance by young consumers. Future studies can approach varied samples
spread across different age groups to understand and classify the po­
tential EV market, which may support the external validity of the pre­
sent findings at an introductory stage of EVs acceptance in India. In
addition, a two-stage cluster analysis has been performed for segmen­
tation and further verified by multiple discriminant analysis using SPSS
software. Future studies may adopt the other variants of clustering
procedure such as latent class, discrete choice and/or hybrid models for
market segmentation for ensuring methodological triangulation and
validation. This may have offered the robust analytical validity of the
current research findings.
Next, the findings are based on young adults who are the current
users of conventional or gasoline vehicles including two-wheelers and
four-wheelers, not obtained from the actual users of EVs as their number
is minuscule at present. Follow-up studies could examine the actual
users of EVs to capture the holistic picture of such market segments
coupled with a comparison to carve out the differences between users
and non-users. More so, scholars can further dig deeper to explore the
12
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services 67 (2022) 102969
ways to motivate the other two segments from the present study i.e.,
‘Conservatives’ and ‘Indifferents’ along with ‘Enthusiasts’ to wear a
favorable attitude towards EV acceptance.
Finally, future scholars could explore the phenomenon of EVs
acceptance by employing the comparison between two-wheelers and
four-wheelers perspectives, and between commercial vis-à-vis passenger
vehicles, which may also provide a comprehensive understating of po­
tential EVs usage.
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