Przegląd ekonomiczno-przestrzennych badań rynku samochodów osobowych = A review of economic and spatial research on the market for passenger cars

The aim of the article is to present selected research directions and results of studies on the market for passenger cars (with an emphasis on its geographical dimension). The focus has been on four main groups of issues: (1) car ownership and car-demand modelling, (2) the relationship between the primary and secondary car market in emergingeconomies, (3) the role of spatial factors and public transport in the functioning of the car market and (4) the environmental impact of automotive expansion and ways of coping with that, such as electromobility and the sharing economy. Studies on car ownership and the demand for cars both confirm that volumes and rates of growth depend primarily on economic factors (GDP, personal incomes, car prices and prices of complementary goods). They also describe spatial and temporal differences in the so-called first automobile revolution (the spread of cars as a mode of transport). The next group of studies on the car market deals with the relationship between the primary and secondary markets in emerging economies (including Poland), in which car ownership has entered on to a path of rapid growth in recent years. The development of the market for passenger cars is also influenced significantly by such spatial factors as urbanisation, population density, the built environment and distance to city centres as well as the accessibility and operation of public transport. These issues, very important from a geographical point of view, are discussed in a subsequent part of the article, prior to current findings on the environmental impact of automobiles being described, in particular as regards the role of various fuels (especially gasoline-petrol and diesel) in generating emissions of harmful substances. The paper then ends with a brief discussion on electric and hybrid cars as well as the sharing economy. In the literature, the above-mentioned topics are found to be related to the so-called second automobile revolution, and are thus of key importance to the debate on the contemporary car market and changes therein. This interdisciplinary debate is seen to be worthy of an involvement on the part of geographers that is broader than hitherto.