Antecedents of the green purchase intention towards electric cars: the Sri Lankan customers’ perspective

Even though fast development in the global economy and technology has accelerated human civilization, it has also caused enormous damage to the global natural environment. Among the several environmental issues, air pollution is a major pollution problem around the world. The vast increase in private car usages is one of the major reasons for air pollution. In order to prevent such threats one solution is moving to cleaner energy vehicles. However, the rate of adoption of cleaner energy vehicles, such as electric cars, is still low. It is therefore vital, to investigate the factors that influence consumer green purchase intention towards electric vehicles. On the other hand, although green marketing and green consumer behavior have been major interest in today’s research field, a careful study of the literature reveals that the green purchase towards the electrical vehicle has not been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine a clear understanding of factors that influence consumer green purchase intention towards electrical vehicle. The research philosophy of the current study is a positivist research paradigm and follows a deductive approach. A quantitative study was conducted using the questionnaire as the primary data collection method and the data was obtained from 215 respondents. The findings of the present study reveal that consumer attitudes towards the electric car, social influence, environmental knowledge and price have a significant impact on green purchasing intentions. Furthermore, social influence has been identified as the salient factor of green purchase intention of the electric car.