The motivational power of emotions and habits for the intention to adopt an electric car

For the market introduction of more sustainable products, a thorough understanding of consumer desires and perceptions and of ways to change consumer behavior is required. This paper focuses on the role of emotions and habits in this process. The results of a study in a sample of 1202 Belgians are reported. The introduction of an electric vehicle, which is projected to be a new more sustainable transport system, is taken as a case to explore the role of emotions and habits in the adoption intention of sustainable products. The extent to which car driving habits and emotional reactions to electric cars mediate the effects on electric car buying intentions of external source constraints and car features that offer positive emotions, is studied. The results show that emotions towards the electric car largely mediate the effect of external source constraint perceptions on buying intention. Habits largely mediate the effect of positive visceral, behavioural and reflective emotional car driving experiences on the adoption intention. The role of habits and emotions is situated in a larger conceptual framework of adoption intention.