• asia
• behavior
• cap & trade
• china
• clean tech
• climate change
• coal
• economics
• energy ethics and equity
• environment
• environmental justice
• impacts
• social change
• sustainable built environment

 

• behavior
• climate change
• electric vehicles
• petroleum
• transportation fuel

In America’s Heartland, where many if not most are skeptical about climate change, a tiny nonprofit has successfully promoted energy solutions. While we certainly wish to change policy, we know that policy alone is not sufficient – the will to implement must be steadfast as well. So we have worked from the ground up and the top down to connect with citizen’s core values, to identify shared goals, to raise the voices of local champions, and to take action together. Our Take Charge Challenge – an energy efficiency contest between communities – harnessed the competitive spirit and transformed efficiency from “sacrifice” to “win.” Energy forums, an economic development tour, a workforce development survey, and booths at the Kansas State Fair in addition to legislative briefings and endless testimony transformed wind energy from “pipe dream” to “a key part of the energy mix.” The Climate & Energy Project seeks to set new defaults for energy use, identifying efficiency as the obvious first fuel and renewables like wind as cost-effective options that “just make sense.”

• behavior
• economics
• energy and climate policy
• energy efficiency
• energy ethics and equity
• energy policy
• environment
• green jobs
• impacts
• non-governmental organizations
• social change

Consumer Response to Plug-in Electric Vehicles

We are in historic times for the auto industry, along many dimensions, from the expanding of car ownership in developing nations, to the peaking of oil, and to the challenges of climate change. In the past, automobile products have changed slowly compared to other “tech” markets. Today, most automobiles are in many basic ways much like vehicles of the past few decades. A few clean and efficient vehicles are having successes in the market and bigger technological changes seem to loom ahead; in particular, in the next few years, automobile makers will attempt to commercialize electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles around the world. Are these products that only a few engineers, enthusiasts and devoted environmentalists want or are these products that will transform the auto industry, embraced by the wide consumer market? For 20 years, researchers at UC Davis have been probing this question, surveying and interviewing car owners about their fuel use, actual or potential use of green cars, alternative fuels, want for small urban or neighborhood cars and electric drive vehicles in particular. UCD researchers have studied consumer response to the basic practical issues, such as purchase costs, operating costs, the constraints of vehicle range, the use of charging stations as well as more cultural arenas such as the development of new symbols, values, the role of information in car owner’s social networks, environmental concepts, efficient driving practices, and the use of energy feedback instruments. Dr. Turrentine reviews the relevant lessons he and his research team at UC Davis have learned in the past 20 years about the electrification of transportation and shares recent findings from his work with BMW in the MINI E program and from the 70 Northern California Automobile Association households who have participated in the PH&EV center PRIUS PHEV conversion program.

• battery storage
• behavior
• social change
• transportation fuel