Abstract
By using the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data, this study explores the status quo of ownership and usage of conventional vehicles (CVs) and alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs), i.e., Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs), Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) and Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), in the United States. The young ages of HEVs (6.0 years), PHEVs (3.2 years) and BEVs (3.1 years) demonstrate the significance of the 2017 NHTS data. The results show that after two decades of development, AFVs only occupy about 5% of annual vehicle sales, and their share does not show big increases in recent years. Meanwhile, although HEVs still dominate the AFV market, the share of PHEVs & BEVs has risen to nearly 50% in 2017. In terms of ownership, income still seems to be a major factor influencing AFV adoption, with the median annual household incomes of CVs, HEVs, PHEVs and BEVs being $75,000, $100,000, $150,000 and $200,000, respectively. Besides, AFV households are more likely to live in urban areas, especially large metropolitan areas. Additionally, for AFVs, the proportions of old drivers are much smaller than CVs, indicating this age group might still have concerns regarding adopting AFVs. In terms of travel patterns, the mean and 85th percentile daily trip distances of PHEVs and HEVs are significantly larger than CVs, followed by BEVs. BEVs might still be able to replace CVs for meeting most travel demands after a single charge, considering most observed daily trip distances are fewer than 93.5 km for CVs. However, the observed max daily trip distances of AFVs are still much smaller than CVs, implying increasing the endurance to meet extremely long-distance travel demands is pivotal for encouraging consumers to adopt AFVs instead of CVs in the future.
Highlights
Transportation is one of the major energy consumers and emission sources
Compared to conventional vehicles (CVs) with internal combustion engine (ICE), a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) combines an ICE system with one or more electric motors that use energy stored in batteries, achieving a better fuel economy and low emissions [3]
Considering automobiles/cars/station wagons, vans, sport utility vehicle (SUV) and pickup trucks are typical household vehicle types for daily travel in the U.S, the following analysis will focus on analyzing cars, vans, SUVs and pickup trucks of CV, HEV, Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) and Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs)
Summary
Transportation is one of the major energy consumers and emission sources. In the United States (U.S.), transportation consumed 29% of energy in 2017 [1] and emitted 28% of greenhouse gas (GHG) in 2016 [2]. Sustainability 2019, 11, 2262 none of them were able to identify the actual ownership and usage features of HEVs, PHEVs and BEVs due to unavailability of AFV information in former NHTSs. In addition, some studies have tried to analyze travel patterns of AFVs with the data of the California Household Travel Survey (CHTS) conducted by the California Department of Transportation during January 2012 through January 2013 [42,43,44].
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