The research project addresses a broad gap in electric vehicles (EV) research in settings like Kuwait, namely a lack of attitudinal and customer preference research into perceptions of EVs. Research into the technical and infrastructural dimensions of EV-adoption in GCC countries is well underway, including research funded by KFAS and KISR in Kuwait. Much less well understood, however, are social attitudes towards EVs and EV-use in Kuwait, and how best to market EVs there once those attitudes are better understood. In addition, the research fills two smaller gaps in the existing research into attitudes towards EV-adoption in the Middle East. First, existing studies rely on survey data, but fail to explore the attitudes reported in surveys in more depth using qualitative data. Second, these same studies also concern prospective EV owners only, and fail to include the perspectives of early adopters.

Outputs

Pre-study: Andri Ottesen and Sumayya Banna, 'Why so few EVs are in Kuwait and how to amend it', International Journal of Engineering and Technology, 10 (2), 2021.

Principal Investigators

Dr Alasdair Jones

Alasdair is Associate Professor in Qualitative Research Methodology in the Department of Methodology, LSE.

Dr Andri Ottesen

Andri is Assistant Professor in the Department of Management, Australian College of Kuwait.

Researchers

Faisal AlQaoud

Faisal is an Assistant Professor at the Arab Open University.

Sumayya A. Banna

Sumayya is an Assistant Professor at the Arab Open University.