Abstract
We conducted a case study in London, Ontario to identify factors that influence decisions to purchase low carbon vehicles including what role municipal governments might play in encouraging low carbon vehicle purchase decisions. As part of a city-university partnership, this study reports (n = 257) results from a mail-out survey. We test mainly whether social influences and mechanisms under municipal control predict intent to purchase electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV). Both proximal social influencers (family and friends) (.179**, .393**) and distal social influencers (.219**, .142*) predict intent to purchase EV and HEV respectively. City information sessions (.161** EV) and City promotion (.141* HEV) significantly influence intentions, while City-provided EV parking and charging are not. While municipalities may find other areas with greater impact on GHG reductions, the findings support promoting the social aspects of EV and HEV purchasing and providing relatively low-cost promotion/events.
Highlights
The impact of the transportation sector on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada is substantial and has worsened over time
There is considerable support for hypothesis 1a in the sense that are the proximal and distal social influence indexes significantly correlated with each of the three dependent variables, but they are significant predictors in the final regression models for all three
Though, the lowest correlations are for the items within the indexes directly relating to influence (PSII4, PSII8, DSII4, DSII8), “my [family/friends/ neighbours/coworkers] has influence over my vehicle purchasing behaviour” with correlations all below .35; they are all significant at the 0.01 level
Summary
The impact of the transportation sector on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada is substantial and has worsened over time. While Canadian GHG emissions overall have decreased modestly from 739 Mt in 2005 to 730 Mt in 2019 (1.1%), the transportation sector is the only sector that has seen an increase in emissions - from 190 Mt to 217 Mt (14%) - over this time span with road transportation increasing (18%) from 130 Mt to 153 Mt (Environment and Climate Change Canada, 2021b). While overall emissions have decreased in the province between 2005 and 2019, the emissions from the road transportation sector increased from 48 to 49 Mt (2.6%) despite the growing availability of more efficient modes of transportation including hybrid electronic vehicles (HEV) and electronic vehicles (EVs) (Environment and Climate Change Canada, 2021a). CEP is the framework that brought together our community-university partnership, providing a language familiar to both that bridged municipal energy planning and academic work on environmental planning (e.g., see QUEST, 2021)
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