Would personal carbon trading enhance individual adopting intention of battery electric vehicles more effectively than a carbon tax?

The implementation of carbon tax (CT) and personal carbon trading (PCT) to transport choices has recently been considered as an approach to draw individual attention to reduce carbon emissions. Since PCT can provide multi motivations, its effectiveness in changing individual adopting decision of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) was hypothesized higher than that of CT. By using the choice experiment method, potential effects of the two policy schemes have been explored and compared. The results showed evidence that both of them could effectively encourage the adoption of BEVs, and the effectiveness of PCT is relatively higher than that of CT. They were shown to be more effective than purchase tax exemption, no driving restriction, and charging discount, but less effective than no purchase restriction. In addition, barriers like purchase price, driving range, and charging time were proved to be less effective than CT, PCT, no purchase restriction, purchase tax exemption, no driving restriction and charging discount. These findings provide insight into further understanding the mechanism of CT and PCT, have important implications to their practical implementation in transport sector, and help perfecting the promotion strategies of BEVs in the future.