Assessment of Current and Projected Future Trends in Light-Duty-Vehicle Fuel Switching. Subtask 1 Report

摘要

Trends in fuel switching by motorists during the period 1978 through 1981 were assessed with the use of two data bases of monthly household purchases of gasoline. Fuel switching was defined as either misfueling - the use of leaded gasoline in cars that require unleaded fuel - or discretionary switching - the use of unleaded gasoline in cars which can operate on leaded fuel. To identify disaggregated patterns of fuel switching, the data were stratified by year, season, census region, type of service station outlet, vehicle category and vintage. In addition, the relationship of trends in misfueling rates to changes in the relative prices of unleaded and leaded gasoline also was examined. Drawing upon the analysis of current data, three alternative future trends in misfueling rates by vehicle vintage were constructed. The impact of each of these cases on projections of the market share of leaded gasoline was examined with the aid of a previously developed model of highway fuel demand. (ERA citation 07:057296)