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Each time a user of a carsharing service reserves a vehicle they choose from a selection of vehicles that vary in attributes including rental price, the distance of the vehicle from their current location, the availability of the vehicle at their desired reservation time, and the type of vehicle (e.g., gasoline, Hybrid, Plug-in Hybrid or Electric). In this paper we analyze the results of a discrete choice survey administered to members of a leading North American carsharing organization. We quantify how carsharing users value price, distance from them, schedule and vehicle type. We find that for an average user, traveling one mile for a vehicle or rescheduling a trip by up to one hour are each approximately equivalent to a US$2/hour increase in vehicle price. We find that carsharing acts as a conduit to introduce users to new vehicle technology: more than half users report having driven a Hybrid vehicle through carsharing, representing 400 users exposed for every one Hybrid vehicle in service. All else being equal, users most prefer Hybrid vehicles. Users who report driving longer distances prefer not to take either electric vehicles or Plug-in Hybrids, despite the fact that Plug-in Hybrids do not have significant range limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, carsharing has grown considerably in the United States, particularly in major metropolitan areas. This innovative business model offers individuals the opportunity to rent cars by the hour, providing them with greater flexibility for their mobility. Previous work on carsharing suggests that its adoption leads to a decline in household vehicle ownership, vehicle miles traveled, and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Utilizing representative data from the 2010–2012 California Household Travel Survey, this paper presents an analysis of travel behavior and vehicle ownership among carshare members versus non-members in the San Francisco Bay Area, focusing on a subsample of the population with access to carsharing at the U.S. census tract level. Consistent with previous findings on vehicle reduction, these results show that carsharing members own significantly fewer vehicles than non-members. However, lower levels of vehicle ownership are only found among households living in urban areas. In dense, urban neighborhoods, households with carsharing membership own 0.58 vehicles per household as compared with 0.96 vehicles of a control group. Suburban carshare members drive less than their non-carshare member counterparts – although the extent to which this difference can be attributed to self-selection it is unknown. This study also finds that among carsharing households that do own vehicles, a greater share of those vehicles are alternative vehicles (e.g., hybrid, plug-in hybrid electric, and battery electric). Among vehicles owned by the subsample examined in this study, electric drive vehicles represent 18.3% of those owned by carshare member households, as compared with 10.2% of the vehicles owned by non-carsharing households. This analysis finds that not only are urban carshare members likely to own fewer vehicles than the rest of the population, if they do own vehicles, they are more likely to own a vehicle with a smaller environmental footprint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines individuals motivations when purchasing vehicles, focusing upon what factors would encourage individuals to purchase hybrid electrical vehicle (HEV) or alternatively fuelled vehicle (AFV). AFVs in this paper refer to any cars run on alternatives to petrol and diesel. This research attempts to ascertain whether reductions in fuel costs, vehicle registration tax (VRT), or green house gas emissions would encourage individuals to purchase a HEV or an AFV instead of a conventional vehicle. VRT is an Irish tax that is levied on the purchase of new vehicles. One of the motivations to conduct this research was to examine a new car tax and VRT scheme introduced by the Irish government in 2008. This new policy rewards the purchase of environmentally friendly cars, with lower VRT and car tax rates. To understand individuals’ perceptions of these new taxes a survey was sent to recent customers of a car company in Ireland. The survey asked respondents about their recently purchased vehicle and how important they considered vehicle attributes such as environmental performance, fuel cost, and safety, before making their car purchase. The survey also contained a number of stated preference experiments that were designed to ascertain what factors influence individuals’ decisions when purchasing their new car. The results showed that respondents did not rate green house gas emissions or VRT as crucial attributes when purchasing a new vehicle. The vehicle attributes that respondents rated most highly were reliability, automobile safety, fuel costs, and the cost price. The majority of respondents agreed that HEVs and AFVs are better for the environment, cheaper to run than conventional vehicles and would be the vehicle of choice in ten years time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]