The Impact of Increased Fuel Economy for Light-Duty Vehicles on the Distribution of Income in the U.S.: A Retrospective and Prospective Analysis
David Greene and Jileah Welch, 2017
David Greene and Jileah Welch, 2017
Energy security and environmental concerns have led to a growing emphasis on alternative fuel vehicles. Particularly within the transportation sector, where gasoline consumption accounts for 47% of total U.S. petroleum consumption, there has been a shift to develop, incentivize, and assist in the adoption of vehicles that are not solely fueled by gasoline.
This report describes the results of statistical estimation of models of scrappage rates and survival probabilities as a function of vehicle age for U.S. light-duty vehicles. The data used are counts of vehicles in operation by vehicle type and model year for calendar years 2002-2020, which allows scrappage functions to be estimated for years 2003-2020.
Since the energy crises of the 1970s the U.S. has struggled to substitute alternative energy sources for petroleum use by motor vehicles. This report reviews recent studies of a wide range of policies to promote alternative fuels and vehicles to extract insights about their impacts and effectiveness.
Since a previous study of the North American non-automotive fuel cell industry by Greene et al. in 2011, the industry has achieved major cost reductions while at the same time improving the durability and reliability of its products. This report estimates the impact of government subsidies provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) on the sales of fuel cell Backup Power (BuP) and Material Handling Equipment (MHE) by North American firms.