| To encourage pure electric vehicle companies to increase their R&D investment and improve product technology,the Chinese government issued a series of R&D subsidy policies.However,the relevant policies failed to achieve the expected results.The actual effects of the procedures were that enterprises relied too much on subsidies but lacked R&D motivation under universal grants.At the same time,enterprises and governments lacked investigation and understanding of consumer behaviors,such as consumer technology thresholds.The lack of knowledge on consumer behaviors led to the fact that the pure electric vehicles produced by enterprises could not meet consumer needs,and government subsidies could not motivate consumers to buy pure electric cars.Furthermore,sales of pure electric vehicles were meager.The consumer technology thresholds are the minimum requirements of consumers for product technology or performance,such as the minimum requirements of consumers for the cruising range or charging time of a pure electric vehicle.Due to the lack of understanding of consumers’ technical thresholds by enterprises,the pure electric vehicle market has long-standing problems such as “range anxiety,” “charging anxiety,” and “safety anxiety,” which hindered the growth of market demand and technology development.Therefore,the government and enterprises should fully consider the impacts of consumer technology thresholds to formulate effective and efficient subsidy policies and R&D decisions.Considering that heterogeneous consumers have different technical thresholds and preferences,through mathematical modeling,game theory,numerical simulation,and other methods too,this article constructed a three-stage sequential game model among the government,enterprises,and consumers under R&D investment subsidies,R&D results subsidies,and product subsidies respectively.It solved the most efficient subsidy strategies for enterprises with different R&D funds,R&D strength,and the highest technical level of products under the premise of the maximum effect on each R&D subsidy method.It also discussed the impact,efficiency,and application scope of each R&D subsidy method and analyzed the impact of consumer technology thresholds on the optimal subsidy strategies and efficiency.Finally,it compared the incentive effect and subsidy efficiency of different R&D subsidy methods and suggested designing and optimizing R&D subsidy policies and improving the government’s subsidy effect and efficiency.The main results of this article are as follows:(1)The R&D investment subsidy applies to enterprises with high R&D strength and medium or low product technical level and enterprises with high,low,and lower R&D strength.The R&D result subsidy applies to enterprises with high,bass,and lower R&D strength and high and medium product technical levels.Product subsidies apply to enterprises with high and low R&D strength and high and medium product technical levels.(2)On the premise that R&D subsidies are provided to applicable companies,R&D investment subsidies can always encourage companies to target the current stage of pure electric vehicle technology.In contrast,the effects of R&D achievement subsidies and product subsidies are limited by the company’s highest product technology level.(3)Product subsidy efficiency is the lowest for companies with high R&D strength.If the company also has low R&D funds,the R&D result subsidy efficiency is higher than the R&D investment subsidy efficiency.For companies with low R&D strength,the R&D result subsidy efficiency is the lowest.If the company also has medium and more R&D funds,the product subsidy efficiency is higher than the R&D investment subsidy efficiency.For companies with lower R&D strength,the efficiency of R&D investment subsidy is higher than that of R&D results subsidy.(4)The impacts of consumer technology thresholds on the optimal R&D subsidy strategies and subsidy efficiency show that the optimal R&D subsidy strategies usually increase with consumer technology thresholds.In contrast,the subsidy efficiency usually decreases with them.In particular,consumer technology thresholds do not affect the optimal subsidy strategies and efficiency for R&D subsidy to companies with few R&D funds.The main contributions of this article are as follows:(1)This article built the game model among the government,enterprises,and consumers under each R&D subsidy method based on the consumer technology thresholds and solved the optimal subsidy strategies of each primary R&D subsidy mode.Unlike the existing literature that ignores the technology thresholds of pure electric vehicle consumers in realistic subsidy scenarios,this paper considers their impacts on pure electric vehicle demand,corporate R&D,and government R&D subsidy policies.It constructed a three-stage sequential game model among the government,enterprises,and consumers under each subsidy method.It solved the optimal subsidy strategies for enterprises with different R&D funds,R&D strength,and the highest technology level of products.(2)This article analyzed the influence of technology thresholds of pure electric vehicle consumers on the optimal subsidy strategies and efficiency.The existing literature has not studied the influence of consumer technology thresholds on the effect and efficiency of pure electric vehicle R&D subsidy policy,while this article studied them.To the research results of this article,the impact of consumer technology thresholds on the effect and efficiency of government R&D subsidy policy filled the gap in this field.(3)This article compared the effect and efficiency of three main R&D subsidy methods by considering technology thresholds and preferences of pure electric vehicle consumers and designed the optimal subsidy policy according to the different subsidy goals of the governmentExisting literature pays more attention to the comparison of subsidy effects of different R&D subsidy methods but not enough attention to the comparison of subsidy efficiency.This article compared the impact and efficiency of three main R&D subsidy methods by considering heterogeneous consumer technology thresholds and preferences.It also designed the optimal subsidy policy based on the comparison results and government subsidy goals,including subsidy methods and coefficients.It put forward policy recommendations to governments for improving R&D subsidy policies more effectively and efficiently. |
