Sharing Is Caring: An Economic Analysis of Consumer Engagement in an Electric Vehicle Sharing Service

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript discussed the possibilities and advantages of sharing electric vehicles instead owning them. However, the novelty of the study is a big concern from the journal's point of view as well as the readers' view. Also, there are many points to be corrected before accepting it for publication. The suggestions are as follows:

1. The should be like "Sharing is Caring......." instead Caring is sharing. 

2. The abstract should be modified with the results/findings of the study.

3. The methodology adopted is not proper and also sampling size is also very less. The questionnaire is rolled out on a social media platform which doesn't have much authenticity in responses. Also, the redundancy may be more (one person may come up with various IDs to give responses). Is any specific methodology adopted to overcome these issues?

4. The questionnaire rolled out on social media can be captured and shown as a figure in the manuscript.

5. The methodology should be revised and could eliminate all the issues in taking the survey with a greater sample size. Also, the flow chart of the methodology should be included in the manuscript. 

6. Also, the data was very old (2018) and how come it is possible in 2023 to have the same views of sharing? Why the old data is considered, and why not the survey is not done again in 2023? 

7. It is suggested to have the current data/statistics to conclude the decision from the survey.

8. In fig 1 and fig 2, the error bars are seen as very lengthy and how could it be justified? The result has a greater range of errors and how can it be justified?

9. Discussions should be more from results not from the literature. Also, the conclusions should be portrayed as different sections and it shouldn't be combined with discussions.

Minor:

1. English should be modified in the manuscript.

2. Continuity of sentences/paragraphs should be maintained in the manuscript. 

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper evaluates a survey about car sharing. The paper is well-written, and I only have a few comments. 

Major:

1. You state that the survey was conducted before and after the launch of the car-sharing service. However, I would suggest that zero to three weeks, after implementation, is too soon a period to be classed as being post launch. Within this three-week operating window, I doubt that every resident has had an opportunity to have experienced this service. It would be great if you could either repeat the survey on the first-anniversary post-implementation. Alternatively, you could add this limitation to the abstract to avoid disappointing the reader. For example, state that the survey has been conducted shortly before and during the implementation of a car sharing service as opposed to stating it was conducted ‘before and after’. 

2. Given that you state that you compare these results from ‘before and after’ the implementation of a car sharing service, I would recommend you add a further table, like table 1, where the columns highlight and contrast the results for ‘before and after’ the implementation.  Alternatively, state in the heading of table 1 that this comparison can be found later in figure 2. 

3. Table 1: are the demographics you observed in your survey respondents representative of the population in Malta?

4. Please mention the criteria you used to exclude surveys considered ‘invalid’.

5. Table 1: “Do you consider selling your car due to the car-sharing service” How can the maximum value be 2? The mean says 0.419, but in the text, you state 30%. 

Minor:

6. Line 147: How much longer? “Passenger cars in Malta also stay on the road longer than they do in other EU countries [40].”

7. Line 173: Why did you write ‘could’? “users could subscribe to 173 their services by downloading their smartphone application”? Is this not ‘can’ or ‘may’?

8. Why do you have 405 valid survey respondents but only a maximum of 375 answers? 

Author Response

Please see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have successfully modified and presented the manuscript with all the possible revisions. Hence, it can be accepted in its current form. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for this favorable review.

Reviewer 2 Report

Well done.

Author Response

Thank you very much for this favorable review.