Project Summary
California’s zero-emission vehicle transition is at risk as federal support declines. This proposed translational project will analyze a previously unanalyzed incentive experiment embedded in a 2025 statewide survey of 3,396 households. The survey captured actual vehicle ownership, use, and the incentive environment at purchase, and it includes an incentive vignette that varies three policy levers: state rebates, federal tax credits, and HOV-lane access. Respondents then indicate their choice and whether the vehicle would be new or used and purchased or leased.
The research team will combine these stated choices with the household’s observed data and estimate discrete choice models (multinomial logit, with mixed logit if warranted). This approach keeps the analysis grounded in real households and real contexts; only the vignette is hypothetical. This project will produce policy-relevant measures – elasticities, willingness-to-accept, and substitution patterns across ICE, PHEV, and BEV – and examine heterogeneity by income, geography, charging access, and disadvantaged-community status.
The team will compare practical policy scenarios to assess whether state incentives can offset reduced federal support or complement it, and which designs deliver more ZEVs per program dollar while considering equity. Planned deliverables are a research report, policy brief, webinar, and academic paper, within a 12-month project period.
