Title:
Development and Adoption of Plug-in Electric Vehicles in China: Markets, Policy, & Innovation
Speaker:
John Helveston, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Energy, Boston University
Coordinator:
Zheng Liang, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
Time: 15:00-16:30 pm, May 12, 2017 (Friday)
Location: Room 302, School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University
Language: English &Chinese
Abstract:
This dissertation is a collection of three papers that assess how characteristics of China's domestic environment, including consumer preferences, national and local institutions, market characteristics, and policy, are associated with the development and adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) in China. PEVs are at the forefront of sustainability in the global automotive industry with promising opportunities to reduce oil consumption and harmful emissions from passenger cars. The first study measures and compares consumer willingness-to-pay for different plug-in vehicle technologies in China and the United States using a conjoint survey fielded in each country. Results show that the current subsidy environments in China and the U.S. yield different outcomes; while Chinese consumers may be more willing to adopt today’s full-electric vehicles, American consumers have stronger preferences for lower-range plug-in hybrids. The second study builds upon the methods of the first. I use a simulation experiment to critique methods for pooling market sales and survey data together in discrete choice models, providing new guidelines for understanding under what conditions pooling data sources may or may not be advisable for accurately estimating true market preference parameters. Finally, the third study uses sales data, archival data, and 51 qualitative interviews to examine the diverse experimentation among independent domestic firms in China's the plug-in vehicle sector. By developing four case studies of domestic Chinese PEV automakers, I demonstrate how the configuration of national and local institutions in China can shape not just the direction of innovation in the PEV industry but also who engages in it. National institutions—specifically the formal Joint Venture (JV) and local content requirements—which have discouraged PEV innovation in multinational firms and inhibited the capabilities of Chinese JV partners to independently develop their own PEVs resulted in a protected PEV market in which independent domestic firms have dominated. This phenomenon, combined with local institutional support in the form of additional market protection and subsidies, has helped turn regional markets into protected laboratories for independent domestic firms to experiment with a variety of innovations. As these domestic firms begin to grow beyond their protected regional markets, national institutions may need to evolve to support national standardization of policies and plug-in infrastructure.
Speaker Bio:
John Paul Helveston is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Institute for Sustainable Energy at Boston University. His primary research interest is understanding the factors that shape technology change, with a particular focus on transitioning to environmentally sustainable and energy-saving technologies. Within this broader category, he studies consumer preferences and market demand for new technologies as well as relationships between firm innovation, industry structure, and technology policy. His dissertation explores these themes in China's electric vehicle industry. He takes an interdisciplinary methodological approach, applying both quantitative methods, such as discrete choice modeling and conjoint analysis, and qualitative / mixed methods, such as interview-based case studies. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in China, collaborating with colleagues at Beijing Normal University and the State Information Center on past projects. He is a fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese and also an internationally renowned and award-winning swing dancer. John holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Virginia Tech. Visit his personal website at www.jhelvy.com for more information.
