A meta-analysis of the importance of the driving range in consumers’ preference studies for battery electric vehicles

We perform a meta-analysis of the studies that evaluate the importance attributed by the consumers to the driving range of the Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs). The paper updates and extends the paper by Dimitropoulos et al. (2013), including primary studies up to the year 2018. It tests whether the conclusions drawn by Dimitropoulos et al. (2013) still hold true given the many changes that occurred in the last years concerning BEVS’ uptake in the market, growing consumers’ direct and indirect experience with electric cars, vehicles’ increased range, and growing diffusion of the charging infrastructure. We carried out two analyses : a) the estimation of the summary effect size of the driving range utility coefficient, and b) a meta-regression of the willingness-to-pay for a 1-km increase in the BEVs’ driving range. The main findings are that : a) the importance attributed to the BEVs’ range by the consumers has not decreased ; b) there is a very large dispersion of the estimates around the mean values, implying that there is a large heterogeneity due to differences in respondents’ needs, vehicle segments and modelling techniques. The meta-regression allowed us to further explore and test statistically these conclusions.