Thread 1 – Markets and Behavior
In this thread, research will be aimed at providing meaningful insights into differing (across fuel pathways) and changing (over time) citizen/consumer response to different ways of fueling mobility. Consumer perceptions of current transportation issues, such as fuel economy, “green” vehicles, and future trends will be analyzed. A variety of investigations into the forces driving markets for alternatively fueled vehicles—such as costs, innovation, and consumer behavior—are planned as part of the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways initiative.
Director of Thread 1: Ken Kurani
Graduate Student Researchers: John Axsen, Jie (Jesse) Zheng
Major Project Areas
- Multiple year, large-sample tracking study: Track awareness, knowledge, symbol formation and meaning, and consideration of vehicles, fuels, as well as private and public costs and benefits.
- Comparative Vehicle Demonstrations H2FCV, PHEV, HEV, Bio-fuels ride-n-drive
- Fuel economy: What do people know, what do they do?
- What are the symbols that excite people: 100+mpg, all-electric range (AER)? Do these symbols motivate different people, or do are they competing symbols among the same people?
- How does citizen/consumer response to fuel economy, instrumentation, and new symbols affect the other STEPs threads and relative results across the four energy pathways?
- The meaning of “green” or more generally the meaning of any collective good
- Mobile electricity: does mobile electricity confer any differential advantage to some energy pathways compared to others?
- Fuel availability: how do different refueling/recharging infrastructures affect the relative marketability of vehicles/fuels?
Structure of "Cross-Comparison" in this thread
To the extent possible, research activities in the market demand and consumer behavior thread will be inherently comparative across energy pathways. For example, the multi-year, large sample tracking study will be designed to cover all four energy tracks. Vehicle and fuel demonstrations are planned to present multiple alternatives in a comparative framework.
Fuel economy studies, and in particular studies on the effects of improved driver feedback, will initially be implemented in conventional vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles, which integrate the conventional fuels and electricity tracks. More generally, the effects of instrumentation can be expanded to bio-fuels and hydrogen as funding (and the availability of vehicles) allows. The meaning of green studies can conducted by energy track, but again, are likely to be more robust if conducted within a comparative framework.
Five students graduate from STEPS Program