Indonesian Public Sentiment Toward Electric Vehicles: Analysis of Social Media Data

The development of electric vehicles (EVs) in Indonesia has progressed significantly, supported by government subsidies for Battery-Based Electric Motor Vehicles. These subsidies have sparked mixed public reactions that some support them due to environmental benefits and pollution reduction, while others oppose them for various reasons. Social media platform X serves as a valuable source for gauging public opinion, though analyzing such data manually can be complex. To address this, sentiment analysis, particularly using the Support Vector Machine (SVM) method, offers an efficient solution. This study analyzes 23,031 Indonesian-language tweets from social media platform X, collected between October 2023 and July 2024, using SVM for sentiment classification. The best-performing model, with parameter C = 0.5 and without stemming, achieved an accuracy of 84.98%. The findings suggest that Indonesians generally view electric vehicles positively, with more favorable sentiments than negative ones. This study offers implications across methodological, industrial, and policy domains. Word cloud analysis further supports this, highlighting public support in areas such as pricing, infrastructure, and environmental impact. However, the study also identifies key concerns, including issues around subsidies, taxes, vehicle durability, battery types, and import regulations. Overall, the research provides meaningful insights into the diverse perspectives of Indonesian citizens regarding EVs, helping to inform future policy and development strategies.