Demographic, Social, Economic, and Regional Factors Affecting the Diffusion of Hybrid Electric Vehicles in Japan

Ken’Ichi Matsumoto,Yui Nakamine,Sunyong Eom,Hideki Kato

doi:10.3390/en14082130

Abstract

The transportation sector is a major contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, and the resulting climate change. The diffusion of alternative fuel vehicles, including hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), is an important solution for these issues. This study aimed to evaluate the factors affecting the ownership ratio of HEVs, particularly passenger vehicles, and the regional differences in the purchase of HEVs in Japan. This study performed a fixed-effects regression analysis with panel data for 47 prefectures during the period 2005–2015 to evaluate the factors affecting the HEV ownership ratio and conducted three cluster analyses to investigate the regional differences in diffusion in terms of price categories, body types, and drive systems of HEVs. Some demographic and social factors were found to affect the ownership ratio in Japan, whereas economic factors, including prefecture-level subsidies for purchasing HEVs, were not. Regarding regional differences, prefectures in urban areas with higher income levels tend to purchase more expensive and large-sized HEVs. These results suggest that a strategy to sell the right vehicle to the right person and region is essential for further promoting HEVs in Japan.

Highlights

Accepted: 8 April 2021Increasing carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions and climate change have become global challenges
This section describes the results of the fixed-effects regression analysis of factors affecting the possession of hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and the cluster analysis of regional differences
Column 1 shows the estimation using the pooled ordinary least square (OLS); Column 2 shows the estimation with the fixed-effects model considering only the prefecture fixed effect; and Column 3 shows the estimation with the fixed-effects model considering both prefecture and year fixed effects

Summary

Introduction

Increasing carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions and climate change have become global challenges. Transportation is a major contributor worldwide to energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, accounting for 24% of global CO2 emissions [1]. In this context, various technologies for low-carbon transportation have been developed [2]. The spread of energy-sustainable transportation, such as alternative fuel vehicles (AFV), is one possible innovation to address this issue [3,4,5]. A growing body of literature has investigated the adaptation factors in the market for EVs and classified some of the major obstacles to the widespread adoption of EVs into vehicle attributes, consumer characteristics, and external factors [5,6]

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