Electric vehicles are considered to be one of the most important ways for China to solve a series of energy problems such as urban smog, energy supply security and turning to green development. With the powerful support provided by the government, China has become the world's largest electric vehicle market and continues to maintain a high-speed growth. This paper examines the factors that may affect the public's purchasing intention of electric vehicles via a survey. An electric vehicle purchasing intention model is proposed based on the literature review and the reality in China. The model takes into consideration a number of demographic characteristic factors and attitude factors. A survey was conducted in China's four largest cities which include: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Based on the survey data, the paper examines the public's cognition of each influencing factor and analyses the impacts of these factors. The results reveal that attitude factors such as network externality, price acceptability, government subsidies, vehicle performance, environmental concerns, and demographic characteristics such as gender, age and marital status have significant impact on respondents' willingness to purchase electric vehicles. The finding of this paper provides constructive advices to diverse stakeholders.