DEMAND FOR CLEAN FUEL CAR IN NORWAY

This paper focuses on the development of models of the choice and demand for clean fuel and clean vehicles. The results presented in this paper are a part of a research project on car ownership and utilisation that was carried out at Institute of Transport Economics, Norway. The study includes a two-wave panel survey. Information on the most important attributes of a car as well as clean fuel vehicle was collected in the first wave and used in the design of the Stated Preference (SP) study. The first wave provides data on car ownership status of a household and information on the household's car fleet. This information was used to customise the SP design. Each respondent received two games on the choice, by rank ordering, of different types of vehicles with clean fuels, including gasoline, for both the main car and as the second car in the household. Different discrete choice models including multinomial logit (MNL) model, nested logit (NMNL) model and exploded logit models were examined for the choice of the main car and the second car in the household. The comparisons of the models for the choice of the main car and models for the choice of the second car in the household suggest that it is more likely to choose a clean fuel car as a second car than a first car. Refuelling range and size are not as important factors in the choice of the second car. Household's income and variable car cost are the more important factors in the choice of the second car. Clean fuel cars, given the present technology, seem to come as an addition to today's cars. The potential market for clean fuel car, as the main car in a household, is to a large degree among the low-income households without car and in the urban areas where level of car ownership is low. The potential buyers of clean fuel car as a second car are the higher income households that already have one or more cars today, an important target group. For the covering abstract of the conference see ITRD E205613. (A)