Business models for electric vehicles: Literature review and key insights

In many countries, the market for electric vehicles is not scaling up as expected despite huge public subsidies and technological progresses. One potential explanation is the absence of profitable business models that support commercialization and drive wide diffusion of electric vehicles. Business models that served conventional cars may not be appropriate for electric vehicles because of technological limitations such as shorter driving range and long charging cycles as well as higher acquisition cost. Recent years, however, have witnessed a growing body of scientific literature on electric vehicle business models. Nevertheless, the insights from this literature are fragmented and rarely address the business model with all its constituting elements. In this article, we review relevant literature on electric vehicle business models and distill key insights along each business model element. This way, our study provides a comprehensive and condensed overview of state-of-the-art research, while identifying potential directions for future research for scholars.