Transitional behavioral intention to use autonomous electric car-sharing services: Evidence from four European countries

Electric car-sharing services (ECS) have been promoted as a solution to combat negative urban mobility externalities and are expected to be facilitated by fleets of autonomous vehicles. There is little evidence regarding the behavioral intention to use autonomous ECS (AECS), especially on the transition from using ECS. This paper investigates the behavioral intention to use AECS using psychological constructs partially from the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) and an additional one expressing safety concern. A novel behavioral intention model is presented to capture the transitional behavioral intention to use two adjacent generations of sharing mobility services. Results of structural equation models applied to a survey sample of 2154 respondents from France, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain show that the introduction of AECS is very likely to be accepted by ECS users. Hedonic motivation is found to be a much stronger predictor of behavioral intention to use AECS as opposed to safety concern, while performance expectancy and social influence are strong drivers of intention to use ECS and have indirect effects on the intention to use AECS. Multigroup analysis indicates heterogeneous behavioral intention across countries. The multi-faceted empirical results generate insights into the deployment and management of AECS in various contexts.