Exploring the Appeal of the Interior Design of Electric Vehicles from the Perspective of Innovation

Nowadays, electric vehicles play a critical and promising role in auto industries. This study presents how electric car interiors makes an innovative appeal to elicit consumers' needs by characteristics so they could prefer the design inside vehicle based on essential features of design. Thus, this study investigates why consumers prefer the interior design of electric vehicles and what specific characteristics make them prefer electric car interiors from the perspective of innovation. Furthermore, this study applies the preference-based research method to disclose the significant meaning for the innovative appeal of electric cars in this study. Hence, the evaluation grid method is applied to decode experts’ professional contents and outlines them by using a semantic hierarchical diagram of electric vehicle interiors. Then, this study conducts a questionnaire survey based on consumers’ reactions and analyzes it by using quantification theory type I. The four best original evaluation items of electric car interior are determined as "tasteful," "Avant-grade," “technical innovation” and "sustainable innovation." Then, the four factors that can be performed using their corresponding reasons and characteristics. This study contributes critical suggestions for interior designers and researchers of electric vehicles. The study also provides useful information to user-centered interaction design, sustainability, and consumer psychology.