An Empirical Study on the Impact of Key Technology Configurations on Sales of Battery Electric Vehicles: Evidence from the Chinese Market

In the global automotive industry’s transition towards electrification and intelligence, the influence of key technology configurations of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) on consumer purchasing decisions and market sales has become increasingly prominent. This paper empirically investigates the impact of BEVs’ key technology features—specifically, driving range, Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADASs), and intelligent cockpits—on sales, with a particular focus on the interaction effect between ADAS score and price. Employing panel data from the Chinese market spanning January 2023 to March 2025, this study analyzes 783 observations across 29 models and 13 brands using a multilevel mixed-effects model (MEM). The results indicate that driving range and intelligent cockpit score (ICS) are significantly and positively associated with sales growth, whereas price has a significant negative effect. More importantly, a significant interaction effect exists between the ADAS score and price, which implies that the impact of ADASs on sales varies across different price levels. Specifically, in lower-priced models, a high ADAS score corresponds to a decrease in sales, while its effect trends toward positive in higher-priced models. Furthermore, a high ADAS score significantly reduces consumers’ price sensitivity.Compared with prior macro-level studies, our contribution is jointly quantifying (i) the main effects of range and ICS and (ii) a price-contingent ADAS effect within a model-within-brand MEM, revealing that higher ADAS scores attenuate price sensitivity in premium segments. These findings offer actionable guidance for configuration bundling and pricing across market segments.