Most Consumers Won’t Pay For Green Vehicle Technologies

A new study by JD Power and Associates shows that only 11 percent of US consumers are "very willing" to pay more for environmentally friendly vehicle technologies. A study of nearly 45,000 new car buyers found that those buyers most likely to pay a premium for green vehicles were female and were concentrated in the western United States. The lowest concentration of female green-technology fans was found in the Midwest. The report said that only one in ten of women in this demographic actually purchased a green vehicle.

John Osborne, research director at JD Powers and Associates, points out that most consumers think of hybrid vehicles as being the only environmentally responsible alternative, but consumers can do their part to help the environment simply by purchasing vehicles that consume less fuel and release less CO2 into the atmosphere.

The study indicates that green-vehicle supporters are more likely to purchase a compact car than the average car-buying population and that they are more likely to have driven a compact car in the past. The study author suggests that people who buy green vehicles are already programmed to look for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, and green vehicle technology is a natural extension to that.

Currently, hybrid vehicles comprise less than 2.5 percent of the overall vehicle market, but this number is expected to change dramatically as more manufacturers introduce hybrid and alternative vehicles to the marketplace, and the price of gasoline continues to rise.

The study examined hybrid-car buyers and found that overall, they are more highly educated, have a higher average household income and are about four years older than the average new car buyer. Hybrid vehicle buyers also tend to advocate more positively for their hybrid vehicles than non-hybrid car buyers do, and are comfortable reading publications like The New Yorker, Sunset and Wired, and tend to watch CNN and CNN Headline News.