Psychological Drivers of Alternative Fuel Vehicles’ Adoption and Ecologically Responsible Use

Environmental problems caused by global warming are becoming alarming with every passing day. To curb greenhouse gas (GhG) emissions, promoting alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) and sustainable transport mode choices is critical. This study explores the predictors of eco-social purchase, use, and conservation intentions in a developing country by employing an extended model of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). Using a self-administered survey technique, data were collected from a nationally representative sample of 1372 customers of three leading automobile manufacturers from eight big cities of Pakistan. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was applied to test the measurement and structural models. Results showed that the extended model of TPB received support in the context of Pakistani culture and for the targeted behaviours related to eco-social purchase, use, and conservation intentions concerning AFVs. Implications for marketers and theoretical contribution are discussed at the end.

Evaluating Consumer Acceptance of the Commercial Fleet of Methanol Vehicles in China

To enhance domestic energy security and reduce air pollution, China has accelerated the deployment of alternative fuel vehicles including methanol vehicles since the 2010s. Already completed pilot projects have demonstrated that methanol vehicles (commercial fleet) are economical, environmentally friendly, and technically mature. Therefore, the Chinese government aims to continually deploy methanol vehicles in coal-rich provinces. There are more than 20,000 methanol taxis in operation in China, it is important to evaluate the existing consumer acceptance of such commercial fleet before commercialization in a wider range. This paper proposes a conceptual model to identify consumer acceptance of methanol taxis. The model generates hypotheses that have been tested using surveys completed by taxi drivers of methanol vehicles in the cities of Xi’an (Shaanxi province) and Guiyang (Guizhou province). Results demonstrate that market, economic, and technological concerns strongly determine the consumer acceptance of the commercial fleet of methanol vehicles in China.

Private Sector Engagement in the Self-Governance of Urban Sustainable Infrastructure: A Study on Alternative Fueling Infrastructure in the United States

Greenhouse gas emission reduction and decarbonization goals drive citizens’ interests in alternative fuel vehicles and have created fast-growing demands on alternative fuels. While governments are promoting the transition to alternative fuel vehicles, the lack of refueling and recharging infrastructure for the vehicles is a key barrier to the adoption. At the same time, the public sector cannot solely provide needed alternative fueling infrastructure due to limited financial resources. Consequently, governments in the U.S. have been working on facilitating the private sector’s investment in alternative fueling infrastructure. The most common approach was financial incentive programs and policies, but the U.S. also promotes self-organized collaborative governance of alternative fuels across sectors at the local level. This paper asks whether these two approaches stimulate the private sector’s engagement in providing alternative fueling infrastructure. This study uses the case of the Clean Cities program that targets the reduction in petroleum usage, adoption of alternative fuels and creation of self-governance at the local level. Local private businesses, local government agencies and non-profit organizations voluntarily participate in the local transition to alternative fuels. Therefore, this governance aims at facilitating more sustainable actions and business choices in the private sector. This paper tests the hypotheses of whether the local self-governance of Clean Cities increases privately-owned alternative fueling infrastructure using panel fixed-effects Poisson regression models. Based on the data of counties in 12 states from 2004 to 2015, the results of empirical analysis suggest that both self-governance and financial incentive programs are effective in increasing the engagement of private actors in providing alternative fueling infrastructure.

The Subsidized Green Revolution: The Impact of Public Incentives on the Automotive Industry to Promote Alternative Fuel Vehicles (AFVs) in the Period from 2010 to 2018

Throughout decades, conflicts related to the access and usage of various energy sources have caused political tensions between nations and confederations of states. Thus, partially to decrease the dependence on fossil fuels, a thorough transition towards renewable energies has been promoted by several regional and national governments as well as by multinational institutions such as the European Union. In this context, the automotive industry has particularly been held responsible for the production of negative externalities, such as global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG emissions), noise and air pollution. To a notable extent, these externalities were caused by vehicles running on fossil fuels such as petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel fuel and fuel oil. Accordingly, it is often argued that replacing vehicles run by internal combustion engines (ICEs) with so-called alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs), particularly with plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), is crucial to increase the sustainability of the transport sector. Moreover, several EU-member states aim to reduce the vehicle-related petrol and diesel demand to decrease their dependence on foreign energy sources. However, one must consider that there are important economic costs related to such a transition process. This paper evaluates the short-term and long-term effects of fiscal policies on the European automotive market in the period from 2010 to 2018, focusing on the impact of mentioned public incentives for AFVs. This public interventionism will be critically evaluated to examine the effectiveness of government incentives in promoting AFVs, particularly for plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). The author argues that the rather positive sales evolution of AFVs was not caused by corresponding actual customer demand but mainly by governmental policies in an increasingly interventionist market. He acknowledges that the growing variety of available PEV models, the increasing driving range of electric vehicles, as well as their decreasing production costs due to economies of scale, have helped PEVs to become more competitive. However, the concern should be raised that mentioned public interventionism is unsustainable from a macroeconomic perspective, possibly leading to significant market distortion and a new artificial market bubble. The narrowed focus on battery electric vehicles prevents the market from further elaborating on other potentially more sustainable technologies. Moreover, from a geostrategic perspective, the transition of the European automotive industry towards electrification is likely to reduce the EU’s dependency on imported fossil fuels but enables several non-European automotive brands to conquer a significant market with their new competitive plug-in electric vehicle technologies.

Automotive industry ecologization: advantages and challenges of alternative fuel vehicles implication

The article is dedicated to the problem of identifying strategic groups in the business education market. The authors conducted a systematic review of publications on the topic. The object of the research is the developed markets of business education in the USA and Western Europe, the subject of the research is the groups of relatively homogeneous educational institutions that demonstrate similar strategic behaviour (strategic groups). For researchers, dividing market participants into strategic groups is the basis for identifying efficiency factors in the respective groups, and for heads of educational institutions and market regulators, it is a prerequisite for constructing meaningfully interpreted rankings and business school ratings. The purpose of the work is to identify trends in changes of the business-schools grouping approaches and the factors underlying such groupings. The authors revealed a shift of researchers' the emphasis from the characteristics of educational programs offered by schools to the positioning of schools in a wide social and educational environment. Although the strategic analysis level is growing, the discussion topic remains fragmented and covers only a part of the business education markets.

Actions Speak Louder than Words: Investigating the Interplay between Descriptive and Injunctive Norms to Promote Alternative Fuel Vehicles

Environmental problems are escalating. Alternate fuel vehicles are a technologically viable solution to curb transport-related pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that cause environmental problems. Based on the theory of norms-driven behavior, this study explains how the underlying facets of subjective social norms (injunctive and descriptive) are linked with personal norms (integrated and introjected) and how this linkage leads to eco-socially conscious consumer behavior related to the choice and use of personal cars. Data were collected from 687 automobile customers from eight large cities in Pakistan. The partial least squares structural equation modeling approach was employed to test the hypothesized relationships of the study. The results showed that subjective norms are positively associated with personal norms, and both together lead to eco-socially conscious consumers’ behavior related to the choice and use of personal cars. Implications for marketers are suggested to promote alternate fuel vehicles and the eco-social use of personal cars.

Shared Autonomous Vehicle System Design for Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV)

Shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) encompassing autonomous driving technology and car-sharing service are expected to become an essential part of transportation system in the near future. Although many studies related to SAV system design and optimization have been conducted, most of them are focused on shared autonomous battery electric vehicle (SABEV) systems, which employ battery electric vehicles (BEVs) as SAVs. As fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) emerge as alternative fuel vehicles along with BEVs, the need for research on shared autonomous fuel cell electric vehicle (SAFCEV) systems employing FCEVs as SAVs is increasing. Therefore, this study newly presents a design framework of SAFCEV system by developing an SAFCEV design model based on a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) model. The test bed for SAV system design is Seoul, and optimization is conducted for SABEV and SAFCEV systems to minimize the total cost while satisfying the customer wait time constraint, and the optimization results of both systems are compared. From the results, it is verified that the SAFCEV system is feasible and the total cost of the SAFCEV system is even lower compared to the SABEV system. In addition, several observations on various operating environments of SABEV and SAFCEV systems are obtained from parametric studies.