Factors of Electric Vehicle Adoption in Central Asia: A Multivariate Analysis of Consumer Purchase Intentions in Uzbekistan

The global transition to electric mobility is crucial for reducing transportation-related emissions, although there is a scarcity of empirical research on customer adoption psychology in transition economies in Central Asia. This study investigates the economic and structural drivers of electric vehicle purchase intention in the Republic of Uzbekistan. Data collected from prospective customers across large city hubs were analyzed using a dual hierarchical multiple linear regression model, supported by an empirical bootstrapping procedure with 2000 resamples, based on the rational choice theory and bounded rationality. The structural model shows that baseline socio-demographics explain insignificant initial variance (R2 = 0.105); however, the integration of primary theoretical constructs yields a significant incremental variance change (ΔR2 = 0.096), explaining 20.1% of the total variance. Inferential tracking confirms that government incentives are the only statistically significant driver of the purchase intention (p = 0.009). Conversely, purchase cost (p = 0.251) and charging infrastructure (p = 0.475) lack direct significance. However, partial collinearity and infrastructure expectation effects systematically change these localized contact points. The study concludes that consumer intent in this emerging marketplace is primarily anchored to macro-level institutional policy signaling rather than immediate vehicle-specific characteristics or current physical network constraints.