EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Willingness-to-pay for alternative fuel vehicle characteristics: A stated choice study for Germany

André Hackbarth and Reinhard Madlener

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2016, vol. 85, issue C, 89-111

Abstract: In the light of European energy efficiency and clean air regulations, as well as an ambitious electric mobility goal of the German government, we examine consumer preferences for alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) based on a Germany-wide discrete choice experiment among 711 potential car buyers. We estimate consumers’ willingness-to-pay and compensating variation (CV) for improvements in vehicle attributes, also taking taste differences in the population into account by applying a latent class model with 6 distinct consumer segments. Our results indicate that about 1/3 of the consumers are oriented towards at least one AFV option, with almost half of them being AFV-affine, showing a high probability of choosing AFVs despite their current shortcomings. Our results suggest that German car buyers’ willingness-to-pay for improvements of the various vehicle attributes varies considerably across consumer groups and that the vehicle features have to meet some minimum requirements for considering AFVs. The CV values show that decision-makers in the administration and industry should focus on the most promising consumer group of ‘AFV aficionados’ and their needs. It also shows that some vehicle attribute improvements could increase the demand for AFVs cost-effectively, and that consumers would accept surcharges for some vehicle attributes at a level which could enable their private provision and economic operation (e.g. fast-charging infrastructure). Improvement of other attributes will need governmental subsidies to compensate for insufficient consumer valuation (e.g. battery capacity).

Keywords: Discrete choice; Stated preferences; Latent class model; Electric mobility; Compensating variation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (83)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965856415002797
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Willingness-to-Pay for Alternative Fuel Vehicle Characteristics: A Stated Choice Study for Germany (2013) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:transa:v:85:y:2016:i:c:p:89-111

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2015.12.005

Access Statistics for this article

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice is currently edited by John (J.M.) Rose

More articles in Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-23
Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:85:y:2016:i:c:p:89-111