The Impact Path of New Energy Vehicle Promotion on Green Development—Empirical Research from the Provincial Level in China

The new energy vehicle (NEV) industry has become one of the most important industries in China’s economic development. Based on the panel data of 27 provincial administrative regions in China from 2011 to 2022, combined with the random effect panel of the Tobit model and the Bootstrap method to test the multiple intermediary paths, this paper studies the impact of new energy vehicle promotion (NEVP) in China on regional green development, taking into account the intermediary effect and regional heterogeneity of NEVP on the green development level (GDL). The results show that NEVP significantly promotes the GDL. The mediating effect of NEVP to improve local-level green development through the digital economy level is significant in the eastern region, while in the central and western regions, it is not significant. NEVP can significantly promote the upgrading of regional industrial structure and the construction of transportation infrastructure in the eastern, central, and western regions so as to improve the local GDL.