Abstract
Sustainable transportation is one of the solutions to global warming because road transport is responsible for a considerable part of the total carbon emissions. Electric vehicle (EV) technology is still developing, and most of the available brands market them as either environmentally friendly or operationally economical compared to internal combustion engine based traditional vehicles. However, the adoption rates of electric vehicles across the globe are meager. Customer engagement (CEN) is one of the emerging concepts for gaining and retaining users of a product. This research analyzes CEN in EVs based on more engaging features and technologies, i.e., smart connectivity features. Unfortunately, this vital research area remains unexplored in academia. The role of customer experience and customer brand value is also analyzed in relation to smart connectivity features and CEN. The study uses partial least square-based structural equation modeling to analyze the collected data through a web-based survey. The results show that smart connectivity features have a significant positive impact on CEN in EVs. Smart connectivity features also have a significant indirect effect on CEN through customer experience. Further, customer brand value has a direct impact on customer experience, and customer brand value also has a significant indirect effect on CEN in EVs. These results have significant theoretical and managerial implications.
1. Introduction
In 2019, the 7.2 million electric vehicles (EVs) in operation worldwide avoided the use of around 600,000 barrels of petroleum products per day, and 53 t CO2 equivalent emissions globally which would have been emitted if EVs had not replaced petroleumpowered vehicles (IEA, 2020). Although the market share of EVs has expanded on average by 60% annually during 2014–2019 (IEA, 2020), the penetration rate of this environmentally friendly technology is very low as EVs accounted for only 2.5% of the total global vehicle sales in 2019, with the exception of Norway (55.9%) and Netherlands (15.1%) (Gersdorf et al., 2020).
5. Conclusions
The paper empirically tests a model for the use of smart connectivity features in EVs and their role in enhancing customer experience and customer engagement. The study found that smart connectivity features have a significant impact on customer engagement both, directly and indirectly through customer experience. Similarly, customer brand value has been found to impact customer experience directly. However, the proposed moderating role of customer brand value on the relationship between smart connectivity features and customer experience is not validated by the data.
