Consumer Adoption of Alternative Fuel Vehicles: A Cluster Analytic Approach on Proenvironmental Technology Choices and Curtailment Behaviors

• Although the private passenger car brings consumers freedom of mobility and expression, the downsides to the car focused society are also becoming obvious. Perhaps air pollution and the squandering of dwindling fossil oil resources are the most commonly discussed issues. In order to reduce emissions and to consume less oil, the traditional approach has been to influence consumers to curtail their car use and influence them to switch to other modes of transportation. Considering the increasing private car use in most countries this approach has had limited effect. Another approach winning ground currently is the path of technological development, where new types of vehicles have been developed that are marketed as having a lesser environmental impact than the conventional fossil oil fuelled cars. From a consumer perspective these new alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs), running on fuels such as ethanol, natural/biogas and to some extent on electricity, can be viewed as proenvironmental innovations. The problem is that much research within environmental psychology has focused primarily on curtailment behaviors rather than on understanding consumer adoption of purportedly proenvironmental innovations. For example, Stern and colleagues have developed the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory postulating that activated personal norms influence consumers’ proenvironmental behaviors. Although well proven, the VBN-theory has mainly focused on curtailment behaviors. From a consumer behavior point of view, less is known about consumer adoption of proenvironmental innovations.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Consumer Perspective

Ethanol Vehicle

Green Consumer

Personal Norm

Technology Choice

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