Interdependent decision-making among stakeholders in electric vehicle development

This study addresses issues related to electric vehicle product development and interdependent decision-making among stakeholders such as producers, infrastructure providers, and consumers. Several automobile companies have launched electric vehicles onto the market recently. Nevertheless, they have confronted complexly intertwined problems because new infrastructure such as plug-in stations strongly affects product value. Based on a game-theoretic approach, we examine four cases of a model describing such interdependent situations among related decision-makers. Furthermore, experiments with human subjects elucidate the mechanisms driving the scenarios. Results show that social surplus increases in the scenario where a producer takes initiative and an infrastructure provider follows. (C) 2011 CIRP.