Battery electric vehicles (BEV) are promoted as a viable near-term technology to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). With Sweden's relatively slow adoption of the BEV in combination with the Swedish government's target of a vehicle fleet independent of fossil fuels by 2030, we study how adoption intentions are influenced by vehicle attribute and when these effects influence BEV adoption. This thesis builds on previous research investigating the effects of barriers and drivers on consumers intentions to adopt electric vehicles. Our study has more specifically examined Swedish consumers intentions to adopt a BEV by conducting a quantitative designed study. We considered the barrier of high perceived price and the driver of environmental self-identity, alongside demographic factors. Furthermore, we also highlight the understudied concept of total cost of ownership (TCO) by studying its moderating role on the relationship between high perceived price, environmental self-identity and consumers intention to adopt BEV’s.  We find that the barrier of high perceived price had no significant influence on intentions to adopt BEV’s, while environmental self-identity was positive and a strong predictor of consumers intentions. Additionally, our results show that the moderating effect of attention to cost (TCOA) and level of information (TCOB) was only significant at one of the four interactions. Concluding that the moderator TCOB has a positive effect on the relationship between high perceived price and intention to adopt BEV’s. These results have implication for BEV marketing, policy and consumers, and suggests that symbolic attributes of the battery electric vehicle have a tendency to reinforce consumers self-identity. This serves as a promising non-financial strategy for increasing BEV adoption. Moreover, the results indicate that consumer with little knowledge of the cost associated with car ownership (low TCOB) are more sensitive to the negative effects from the price of BEV’s in relation to their adoption intentions.

To promote higher air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Californian government is investing heavily in developing public charging infrastructure to meet its electric vehicle adoption goal of five million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2030. This thesis investigates the effect of public charging infrastructure availability on electric vehicle adoption at the zip code level in California. The analysis considers other factors that may influence electric vehicle adoption such as education level, income, commute time, gas prices, and public transportation rate. The findings suggest that public charging infrastructure availability does significantly positively correlate with electric vehicle registrations. Linear regressions were run using data from the U.S Department of Energy Alternative Fuels Data Center, IHS Markit vehicle registration data, and the US Census Bureau. The findings support continued investment in public charging infrastructure as a means of promoting electric vehicle adoption.

<p dir="ltr">Peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms have experienced remarkable growth, driven by advancements in internet technology and mobile applications. This rapid expansion has reshaped markets and introduced complex dynamics that warrant deeper exploration. This dissertation focuses on three critical dimensions of this field: the impact of platform introduction, platform regulation, and environmentally sustainable platform operations.</p><p dir="ltr">First, we study how the emergence of ride-hailing platforms has impacted the automotive industry by influencing both the sales and rental markets. Dealers and rental agencies, which once operated in separate markets, have become indirect competitors because car owners in the sales market offer rides to consumers in both the sales and rental markets through the platform. Therefore, to fully understand the platform’s impact, it is essential to consider these markets simultaneously. To this end, we develop a comprehensive model incorporating the manufacturer, dealer, and rental agency to analyze how a platform’s presence influences firm decisions and total car ownership. We show that the dealer increases its orders for products with high marginal costs due to the value enhancement effect, wherein car ownership becomes more valuable with the presence of a platform. Importantly, we find that neglecting the rental market - as most of the existing literature does - underestimates this effect. While the value enhancement effect does not extend to the rental market, a platform's presence may motivate the rental agency to increase its orders for products with low marginal costs and new-car valuation. However, the increase in rental cars is generally relatively modest compared to the decrease in personally owned cars, resulting in an overall increase in total ownership only for products with sufficiently high marginal costs and rental-car valuation. Moreover, we show that failing to consider both markets and their interactions may lead to inaccurately assessing the total change in ownership compared to the platform's absence. Finally, we discuss the implications of car owners' partial or heterogeneous participation rate in the platform and demonstrate that our results generally hold.</p><p dir="ltr">Second, we focus on the 90-day cap regulation in San Francisco and Berkeley to investigate the effectiveness of this supply restriction in improving the affordability of housing in the city. We specifically investigate 1) whether the regulation accurately targets landlords in the sharing market and increases the supply in the local long-term rental market and 2) whether the regulation achieves its goal of making housing more affordable for the targeted lower-income population in the city. We exploit a detailed dataset on Airbnb and Zillow in this empirical analysis. Using standard DID regression analysis, the paper finds that the regulation significantly decreased the listing number by about 29.6% and increased the overall average daily rate of short-term rentals by about 14.6% on the platform while decreasing the average price of long-term rentals by about 4.1% in the local residential market, in the year following the enforcement of the regulation. Meanwhile, we find that the benefit of the regulation effectively targeted affordable homes in the long-term rental market but did not affect the high-end and single-family markets significantly. In particular, using quantile DID methods, we show that the regulation only reduces the average rental price (of all types of homes) in only about 30% of the lower end of the local long-term rental market. The regulation also made a heterogeneous impact on different types of listings on the platform, making hosted listings increase their supply and benefit from the spillover effects, especially since it works efficiently to figure out landlords and sharers for multi-home host listings. </p><p dir="ltr">Third, we examine a ride-hailing platform's optimal subsidy design to increase electric vehicle (EV) adoption among drivers, which has been a key operational goal for P2P platforms as they increasingly prioritize sustainability. To this end, we model the choices made by drivers when selecting between gasoline gasoline vehicles (GVs) and EVs, considering the heterogeneity of drivers in their time costs. We examine how market segments are shaped by differences in the marginal costs of usage and prices between the two types of vehicles. These analyses reveal the distinct trade-offs faced by drivers with high supply compared to those with low supply. Motivated by practice, we consider three types of subsidies a platform may adopt to achieve full adoption of EVs, i.e., set-up bonuses, earning boosts, and charging discounts. We find that the earning boost subsidy consistently drives greater EV usage than the other subsidy types. However, we also find that a profit-driven platform is more likely to favor earning boosts when its per-unit profit is relatively high, even if this may not align with the most environmentally beneficial outcomes. This highlights the need for careful consideration of the platform’s subsidy design, as profit-maximizing strategies might conflict with environmental objectives. </p>