A fundemantal and unanswered question for the widely shared goal of electrifying passenger vehicles is how the price of electricity, which can vary greatly across countries and regions, affects buying behavior. I make use of a natural experiment in Norway in the period 2021-2022 when large price differences between north and south emerged to estimate the effect of electricity prices on the decision to purchase a pure battery-electric vehicle. Simple difference estimates along the border of the price zones as well as a difference-in-difference regression model suggest a significant but economically modest effect of a 2-4\% reduction in the probability of purchasing an electric vehicle in the high price zone. A counterfactual simulation suggests that there would have been about 3000 to 6000 fewer electric vehicles sold in the high-price south compared to a scenario where the south had equally low prices as in the north.

翻译：一个关于全球广泛认同的乘用车电动化目标的根本性且尚未解答的问题是，电价（在不同国家和地区可能存在巨大差异）如何影响购买行为。本文利用2021-2022年挪威北部与南部出现巨大电价差异这一自然实验，估算电价对购买纯电动汽车决策的影响。基于电价区边界上的简单差分估计以及双重差分回归模型表明，高电价区购买电动汽车的概率显著下降约2-4%，但经济影响幅度适中。反事实模拟显示，若南部电价与北部同样低廉，则高电价南部地区电动汽车销量将比实际减少约3000至6000辆。