Forward–Reverse Blockchain Traceability Strategy in the NEV Supply Chain Considering Consumer Green Preferences

The rapid development of the new energy vehicle (NEV) industry has led to concerns about battery quality and the transparency of green recycling, causing uncertainty among consumers. Many firms adopt blockchain technology to solve this problem, but blockchain adoption will bring privacy leakage risk to consumers. A Stackelberg game model of a three stage NEV supply chain is constructed to examine the impact of adapting blockchain on strategic decisions of supply chain participants. We consider a setting in which a battery supplier provides batteries to a NEV manufacturer, and a third-party recycler recovers retired batteries for a NEV manufacturer. We explore the influence of consumers’ green recycling preferences on the decisions of NEV supply chain members in three scenarios: not adopting blockchain traceability (NB), adopting blockchain with forward traceability (FB), and adopting blockchain with forward–reverse traceability (DB). We find that NEV supply chain members are more likely to adopt forward–reverse traceability under certain conditions. Moreover, the adoption of blockchain drives the battery supplier and NEV manufacture to increase wholesale price and retail price, especially under forward–reverse traceability. In addition, when consumers exhibit strong preferences for green recycling, third-party recyclers are more willing to invest in blockchain-based recycling due to its ability to enhance the accuracy and credibility of recycling data.