The explorative research on the adoption of the electric car, rises a lot of research questions (RQ) and proposals
for further research. Two of them are outlined below.
RQ 1.What are the triggers and the barriers for adopting sustainable products and how do they differ along the
different stages of the adoption process? Consistent with a lot of research that has been done in the case of
‘alternative water sources’, it will be useful to identify strong accepters in an early stage and describe them by
means of socio-demographic characteristics as well as by lifestyle characteristics (Dolnicar,and Schäfer, 2009).
It is important to identify the early adopters (Rogers, 1995) -those who are the first to claim having an intention
to buy and drive the electric car- also by their motivational components. The exploration of the Decomposed
Theory of Planned Behavior reveals that these motivational components should be extended with ‘emotional’
‘habitual’ and ‘caring’ – components, and can so be a suitable framework for the conception of a more
quantitative research. A big contribution will be to investigate how the decision making process of consumers to
adopt the electric car evolves over time, and to describe the different adopter groups in terms of socio
demographic, lifestyle and values. For this matter a quantitative longitudinal research method seems appropriate.
Adopting the electric car, is about adopting an incomplete system. A lot of questions can be raised about the
external source constraints. For some situations the car seems more appropriate than for others. On this matter