The confluence of vehicle electrification, sharing and pooling, and automation alters petroleum-fueled, human-piloted, and privately-owned and operated vehicles for personal mobility in ways that raises such questions as, “Are such systems safe and secure?” and, “Who is being kept safe and secure from what (or whom)?” Answers are implied by filling in the “who” and “whom” of the second question: system, product, producer, road, and user. This white paper focuses on (actual and potential) users of systems of electrically-powered, shared, and automated vehicles (e-SAVs) as well as other road-users, e.g., pedestrians and cyclists. The role of user perceptions of safety and security are reviewed to create an initial framework to evaluate how they may affect who will initially use systems of e-SAVs for personal mobility and how safety and security will have to be addressed to foster sustained transitions. The paper will primarily be a resource for e-SAV user research, but will also inform system development, operation, and governance. This white paper offers an overarching framework grounded in the social theory of “risk society” and thus organizes past work that, typically, focuses on only one of the constituent technologies or on one dimension of safety or security, e.g., collision avoidance as a subset of road safety.

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This is the second of two reports gauging the extent to which car-owning households in California have considered purchasing plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, battery electric vehicles, and fuel cell electric vehicles collectively, zero emission vehicles. It seeks insights into how to promote greater consideration across an increased number and broader variety of households. The analysis is based on two on-line surveys of car-owning households in California. The first was conducted in February (n = 1,681) and June 2017 (n = 1,706). Analysis of the February 2017 data is presented in the companion State of the Market Report 1. Nothing in the results for the June data contradicts the general findings from February.

New results from additional analysis of the role of biological sex/social gender is based on a recommendation in the first State of the market report. The lower likeliness that female respondents have considered zero emission vehicles is solely for fuel cell electric vehicles. There appear to be some slight differences in how some explanatory variables are correlated to consideration between males and females: for females, it matters more that they live in a household that has flexible vehicle assignments; for males, it matters more whether they claim familiarity with internal combustion engine vehicles and experience with zero emission vehicles. Still, these differences are marginal and do not contravene the overall finding that across all respondents—female and male—few have paid much attention to any kind of zero emission vehicle.

Zero emission vehicle consideration is a multi-faceted concept and there are several ways in which it can be initiated: personal contact with zero emission vehicle drivers; making visible the signs of the transition, i.e., teaching people which vehicles they see on the road are zero emission vehicles, making visible not merely of specific charger locations but a growing charging network, and marketing the fact incentives exist to buy and use zero emission vehicles; and expanding the number and variety of opportunities to gain direct experience of zero emission vehicles. In doing so, consider differential possibilities to provide targeted messages at the majority of car-owning households who are not opposed to the idea of zero emission vehicles, but simply have paid them no attention.

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Ambitious global goals to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions are motivating a shift to electric vehicles (EVs), which include battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and fuel cell electric vehicles. In 2018, the governor of California called for five million EVs to be on California’s roads by 2030. The International Energy Agency projects a global increase in EVs from 2 million today to 280 million by 2040. Creating sustained market growth to meet such goals presents numerous challenges to all EV stakeholders, including governments, the automobile industry, electricity suppliers, non-governmental organizations, and consumers.

This policy brief summarizes the latest in a series of recurring surveys of consumers regarding their awareness and consideration of EVs. Two surveys of the population of car-owning households in California were conducted in February and June of 2017; sample sizes were 1,681 and 1,706, respectively. Several survey questions have been repeated over multiple years in similar samples, allowing comparison to earlier results.

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Advocates of electric, shared, and automated vehicles (e-SAVs) envision a future in which people no longer need to drive their privately owned, petroleum-fueled vehicles. Instead, for daily travel they rely on fleets of electric, automated vehicles that offer travel services, including the option to share, or “pool,” rides with strangers. The design, deployment, and operation of e-SAVs will require widespread willingness of users to share with strangers vehicles that are capable of fully automated driving. To achieve the environmental and societal goals of e-SAVs it is critical to first understand and address safety and security concerns of potential and actual users. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, reviewed the literature to understand potential users’ perceptions of safety and security risks posed by intertwined social and technical systems of e-SAVs and proposed a framework to advance research, policy, and system design. This policy brief summarizes the findings of that work and provides policy implications.

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Early sales and leases of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) appear to be skewed towards men. Data from California’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Project and reports from auto industry observers indicate the ratios of male-to-female buyers of PEVs were in the range of four-to-one to nearly six-to-one during the period 2011 to 2014. This is alarming given the ratio of male-to-female buyers for the full vehicle market is about one-to-one and deviations usually favor more women than men.

A skew toward men in the early PEV market should not be dismissed merely as “boys and their toys” motivated to purchase PEVs because of interest in new technology (even if, as this study supports, men are more likely than women to express an interest in PEV technology). Research on early PEV owners indicates that for their many similarities, females and males talked about their PEVs in ways that suggest female PEV drivers’ experiences may carry less influence to shape the future of PEVs and charging infrastructure than males’ experience. If future PEV performance and charging infrastructure deployment are guided by early buyers’ feedback, male-dominated feedback will shape a system to which women will have to adapt. Unless attention is paid to understanding how sex identity and gender roles affect both supply and demand for PEVs, there is a continued risk of limiting PEV market growth.

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This is the first of two reports that gauges the extent to which car-owning households in California have considered purchasing plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), battery electric vehicles (BEVs), and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) (collectively, ZEVs). It explores which households have or have not considered ZEVs and, in those differences, seeks suggestions for how to promote greater consideration across an increased number and broader variety of households. The analysis is based on an on-line survey of car-owning households in California conducted in February 2017; the sample size was n = 1,681. The primary measure is the extent to which respondents have already considered a ZEV for their household: 4-of-5 car-owning households in California had given either no or nearly no consideration to ZEVs. Combined, less than 10 percent had given the highest two levels of consideration; active shopping or ownership. Other measures of awareness, name recognition, incentive knowledge, and driving experience were commensurately low. Relying on socio-economic and demographic variables to segment markets is unlikely to succeed. Variables describing respondents’ decision contexts and resources are important, especially whether respondents can reliably access electricity at a home parking location. General attitudes regarding air quality, the relative public health and environmental effects of electricity vs. gasoline, and experience with HEVs add further explanatory power.

Ultimately though, variables specific to ZEVs are more strongly associated with ZEV consideration: interest in ZEV technology; familiarity with ZEVs including name recognition, driving experience, and recognizing and recalling PEV charging, assessments of ZEV charging/fueling duration, driving range, purchase price, safety and reliability; and, whether people know a ZEV owner. The modeling done here is of differences between people at one point in time not of changes to people over time. Still, the suggestion is that to increase ZEV market growth it is essential to increase peoples’ awareness and knowledge, providing them with the basis for informed assessments, and thus prompt serious consideration of ZEVs for their households. It should not be expected that all the people who have so far paid no or little attention will be quickly converted to ZEV shoppers and owners. However, there seems little prospect to grow the ZEV market unless the vast majority of car-owning households in California can be engaged in the transition to electric-drive.

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Much prior research into consumer automotive and fuel purchase behaviors and fuel economy has been shaped by the normative assumptions of economics. Among these assumptions are that consumers should pay attention to costs of fuel and that they are aware of their options to save on fuel over long periods of time, i.e., the life of a vehicle or at least their period of ownership. For example, researchers have analyzed in some depth consumer choices for more fuel economical vehicles in the 1980s and more recently consumer choices in Europe for more expensive diesel vehicles with lower fuel costs than their gasoline competitors. Some of this research investigates whether automobile buyers have varying future values for money invested today in higher fuel economy, i.e., consumers' discount rates. More recently, in the context of the political battle over new CAFE standards, both automobile manufacturers and energy researchers have asked consumers questions about their willingness to pay more for higher fuel economy and consumers' payback periods for these investments. Both payback periods and net present value calculations require good knowledge of one's own vehicle and annual fuel expenses, forecasts of future prices, and a sophisticated series of calculations. The new arena of debate and research on consumer response to better fuel economy technology is CO2 reduction strategies generally, and regulations to reduce CO2 emissions from transportation in California specifically.

The research we report here is designed to help researchers and policy makers to ground future work in the reality of how consumers think and behave relative to fuel economy and efficiency, both on a daily basis and when they purchase motor vehicles. We recruited what we call an "illustrative" sample; fifty-seven households from ten "lifestyle sectors"—for example hybrid vehicle buyers, financial analysts, and off-road vehicle enthusiasts—that we guessed might have differing information and habits around the issue of fuel economy. We conducted a semi-structured, 2-hour interview, which included these four parts: household vehicle histories, purchase narratives, prospecting of future choices, and knowledge and daily behavior around fuel use and purchases.

Our strongest finding was that for the most part, our households do not pay much attention to fuel cost over time or in their household budgets, unless they are severely constrained economically. Consumers do pay attention to the price of a tank of fuel and the unit price of fuel on the given day they buy fuel. But this "knowledge" is ephemeral; it is rapidly forgotten over the next few days. Fuel consumption instrumentation on most vehicles is limited and drivers seldom pay attention; the exception is hybrid vehicles and their drivers.

One effect of limited knowledge is that when consumers buy a vehicle, they do not have the basic building blocks of knowledge to make an economically rational decision. When offered a choice to pay more for better fuel economy, most households were unable to estimate potential savings, particularly over periods of time greater than one month. In the absence of such calculations, many households were overly optimistic about potential fuel savings, wanting and thinking they could recover an investment of several thousand dollars in a couple of years.

Of importance to regulators, we find that good fuel economy is widely considered an attribute of cheap cars; many of our households expressed greater regard for fuel efficiency, a term free from a cheap image and more closely associated to ideas of resource conservation, advanced engineering, and high technology and quality.

In the last part of the report we identify five styles of decision making relative to fuel economy, including a more detailed discussion of the decision-making in a small sample of eight hybrid vehicle buyers.

In closing, and as this is the first stage in a longer research project, we offer some preliminary conclusions and two hypotheses to steer more quantitative research. Our findings suggest that current strategies of drawing attention to annual fuel cost savings could disappoint buyers, and instead education efforts might focus on fuel efficiency and technical advances. Our interviewees ignore fuel economy for additional reasons; it is only one feature of an expensive, complex good which has many implications for lifestyle and image goals. Our research suggests that consumers might value fuel economy more highly if it were more like shiny paint or a bold body style—an attribute with some emotional punch.

To explore the potential energy impacts of widespread PHEV use, an innovative, three-part survey instrument collected data from 877 new vehicle buyers in California. This analysis combines all the available information from each respondent—driving, recharge potential, and PHEV design priorities—to estimate the energy impacts of the respondents’ existing travel and understandings of PHEVs under a variety of recharging scenarios. Results suggest that the use of PHEV vehicles could halve gasoline use relative to conventional vehicles—the majority of this reduction being due to increases in charge sustaining (CS) fuel economy. Using three scenarios to represent potential boundary conditions on PHEV driver recharge patterns (unconstrained, universal workplace recharging, and off-peak only charging), we estimate tradeoffs between the magnitude and timing of PHEV electricity use. In the unconstrained “Plug and Play” recharge scenario, recharging peaks at 6:15 p.m., following a far more dispersed pattern throughout the earlier part of the day than anticipated by previous research. PHEV electricity use could be increased through policies increasing non-home recharge opportunities (e.g., the “Enhanced Workplace Access” scenario), but most of this increase occurs during daytime hours and could contribute to peak electricity demand (depending on a given region’s definition of “peak”). We also demonstrate how deferring all recharging to off-peak hours (8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.) could eliminate all additions to daytime electricity demand from PHEVs. However, in such a scenario less electricity is used due to the elimination of daytime recharge opportunities and less gasoline is displaced. Overall, policy, technology, and energy providers may use this information to understand whether their plans, designs, and goals align with these present empirically informed understandings.

Vehicles that can run on both electricity and gasoline—so-called plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs)—are proposed as both a near-term technology to achieve energy and environmental goals and a transitional step toward viable all-electric vehicles addressing many of the same goals. Whether PHEVs meet any of their goals depends not only on their design and performance on standardized drive cycles, but also on drivers’ travel and refueling/recharging behaviors. To replace assumptions with observations of potential PHEV drivers’ behavior in market and impact analyses, we conducted an internet-based survey of 2,373 new car-buying households in the United States. The instrument was implemented in three separate pieces, requiring multiple days for households to answer questions, conduct a review of their own driving and parking patterns, and then complete a sequence of PHEV design exercises. In this paper, we draw five conclusions from the resulting data. First, most new vehicle buyers are unaware of PHEVs in particular and are confused about electric-drive terminology commonly used by experts. Second, at least half of our target population is already equipped for at-home vehicle recharging, but currently have little opportunity for recharging at their workplace or other locations. Third, we observed widely varied interests in four possible PHEV attributes—fuel economy in both charge-depleting (CD) and charge sustaining (CS) operation, blended vs. all-electric operation, the distance over which the vehicle is in CD mode, and recharging speed. Still, the appeal of increased fuel economy appears to be highest and that of faster recharging to be lowest. Further, there is little interest in all-electric operation. Fourth, given the previous two points, we estimate that about a third of the target population has both the infrastructure to recharge a PHEV and interest in a vehicle with plug-in capabilities. Fifth, our recharge scenarios demonstrate that although widespread PHEV use could halve gasoline use, impacts to the electricity grid could highly depend on the time-of-day and location recharge management strategy. While unconstrained recharging among PHEV buyers may exacerbate current peak electricity demand, pushing vehicle recharging to off-peak hours through charging controls, time of day tariffs or other means could reduce overall electricity used by vehicles. Overall, policy, technology, and energy providers may use this information to understand whether their plans, designs, and goals align with these present understandings, or whether it would be collectively beneficial to foster new understandings of PHEVs among U.S. carbuyers.