Electric Vehicle Market Dynamics and Consumer Adoption Patterns: Evidence from Multi-Source Public Data
Keywords:
electric vehicles; market segmentation; consumer adoption; sentiment analysis; ARIMA; difference-in-differences; policy evaluationAbstract
The global electric vehicle (EV) market expanded at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46.5% between 2015 and 2024, reaching 17.1 million annual sales and a 57-million-vehicle on- road stock, yet the structural drivers of adoption heterogeneity remain incompletely characterised. This study integrates five open-licence public datasets—IEA Global EV Outlook 2025, Washington State DOL registration records, U.S. EPA Fuel Economy Guide, NHTSA consumer complaints, and NREL alternative fuelling station data—to examine EV market dynamics at global, regional, and consumer levels. K-means clustering (k=2, silhouette = 0.476) identifies two national market archetypes: Established Leaders (Norway, 88.9% share) and Emerging Markets (China, USA, Germany, UK, France, India, Netherlands). Analysis of 266,921 Washington State registrations shows BEVs constitute 80.8% of the fleet; Tesla holds 42.0% of registrations. Among 1,329 EPA- certified BEV records, mean electric range is 269 miles and mean annual fuel cost is $851. VADER sentiment analysis of 2,002 NHTSA complaint narratives yields a compound score of −0.498 (79.6% negative), reflecting charging reliability concerns. ARIMA(1,1,1) and Holt-Winters models project 25.2M and 28.1M global sales by 2030. Difference-in-differences estimation attributes causal gains of +4.72 pp (US IRA 2022), +8.54 pp (EU Green Deal 2020), and +14.89 pp (Norway 2017) to specific policy interventions.
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