Us vehicles sales. Evidence of persistence after COVID-19.

In this paper, the sales of vehicles in the US are examined to understand if the shock caused by the current COVID-19 pandemic has had permanent or transitory effects on its subsequent evolution. Using monthly data from January 1976 until April 2021 and fractional integration methods, our results indicate that the series reverts and the shocks tend to disappear in the long run, even when they appear to be long lived. The results also indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic has not increased the degree of persistence of the series but, unexpectedly, has slightly reduced its dependence. Thus, shocks are transitory, long lived but, as time goes by, the recovery seems to be faster, which is possibly a sign of the strength of the industry.

Health Benefits of Strategies for Carbon Mitigation in US Transportation, 2017‒2050.

Objectives. To quantify health benefits and carbon emissions of 2 transportation scenarios that contrast optimum levels of physical activity from active travel and minimal air pollution from electric cars. Methods. We used data on burden of disease, travel, and vehicle emissions in the US population and a health impact model to assess health benefits and harms of physical activity from transportation-related walking and cycling, fine particulate pollution from car emissions, and road traffic injuries. We compared baseline travel with walking and cycling a median of 150 weekly minutes for physical activity, and with electric cars that minimized carbon pollution and fine particulates. Results. In 2050, the target year for carbon neutrality, the active travel scenario avoided 167 000 deaths and gained 2.5 million disability-adjusted life years, monetized at $1.6 trillion using the value of a statistical life. Carbon emissions were reduced by 24% from baseline. Electric cars avoided 1400 deaths and gained 16 400 disability-adjusted life years, monetized at $13 billion. Conclusions. To achieve carbon neutrality in transportation and maximize health benefits, active travel should have a prominent role along with electric vehicles in national blueprints. (Am J Public Health. 2022; 112(3):426-433. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306600).

Impact of product subsidies on R&D investment for new energy vehicle firms: Considering quality preference of the early adopter group.

Different consumer groups accept new energy vehicles sequentially from the perspective of innovation diffusion theory, and the early adopter group has recently been identified. By assuming that the density of early adopters is increasing at minimum acceptable quality thresholds, this paper proposes a vertical quality differentiation model of product R&D with product subsidies. The impact of product subsidies on the R&D investment of new energy vehicle firms is discussed. We show that the early adopters' characteristics may affect the stagnant marginal R&D investment of new energy vehicle firms by increasing sales, which determines the impact mechanism of product subsidies. For firms with decreasing marginal R&D investments, insufficient R&D investments result from financial constraints. If insufficient R&D resources deter firms from conducting R&D, substantial unit subsidies invariably incentivize firms to spend their entire R&D budget. Firms with increasing marginal R&D investments, insufficient R&D profits, or financial constraints are prevented from increasing R&D investment. Product subsidies generally have a crowding-in effect on firms not subject to financial constraints, and this effect increases with the unit subsidy. However, the existence of a crowding-in effect may require sufficiently large unit subsidies. In both situations, product subsidies cannot modulate financial constraints if the firm has spent its entire R&D budget. In the first situation, we also show that product subsidies should be replaced by a funding support policy. In contrast, the second situation shows that a funding support policy should be coordinated with product subsidies.

Bounding the efficiency gain of differentiable road pricing for EVs and GVs to manage congestion and emissions.

Increasing concerns about air pollution and the promise of enhancing energy security have stimulated the growth of electric vehicles (EVs) worldwide. Compared with gasoline vehicles (GVs), EVs have no emissions and are more environmentally friendly to the sustainable transportation system. Since these two types of vehicles with different emission externalities and observable differences, in this paper, we propose a differentiable road pricing for EVs and GVs to simultaneously manage congestion and emissions by establishing a two-class bi-objective optimization (TCBO) model. First, we investigate whether the differentiable road pricing can induce user equilibrium pattern into a unique pareto-efficient pattern. Then performance of the bi-criteria system optimal is measured by bounding the deviation gap of the Pareto frontier. Specifically, we bound how far the total system travel time and total system emissions at a given Pareto optimum can deviate from their respective single-criterion based system optimum. Finally, we investigate the maximum efficiency gain of the bi-criteria system achieved through implementing differentiable road pricing by comparing total system travel time and total system emissions under two states. After defining two types of price of anarchy (POA), the theoretical bound for the worst possible ratio of total system travel time\ total system emissions in user equilibrium state to the total system travel time\ total system emissions in Pareto-efficient state is derived out. In order to validate the feasibility of theoretical bound, we conduct case studies to calculate the numerical bound of POA based on two Chinese cities: Shenzhen and Lasa. Overall, quantifying the maximum efficiency of differentiable road pricing is beneficial for improving the network designing, policy implementation and social efficiency with regard to congestion and emissions caused by EV and GV users.

Energy self-sufficient households with photovoltaics and electric vehicles are feasible in temperate climate.

The idea that households produce and consume their own energy, that is, energy self-sufficiency at a very local level, captures the popular imagination and commands political support across parts of Europe. This paper investigates the technical and economic feasibility of household energy self-sufficiency in Switzerland, which can be seen as representative for other regions with a temperate climate, by 2050. We compare sixteen cases that vary across four dimensions: household type, building type, electricity demand reduction, and passenger vehicle use patterns. We assume that photovoltaic (PV) electricity supplies all energy, which implies a complete shift away from fossil fuel based heating and internal combustion engine vehicles. Two energy storage technologies are considered: short-term storage in lithium-ion batteries and long-term storage with hydrogen, requiring an electrolyzer, storage tank, and a fuel cell for electricity conversion. We examine technological feasibility and total system costs for self-sufficient households compared to base cases that rely on fossil fuels and the existing power grid. PV efficiency and available rooftop/facade area are most critical with respect to the overall energy balance. Single-family dwellings with profound electricity demand reduction and urban mobility patterns achieve self-sufficiency most easily. Multi-family buildings with conventional electricity demand and rural mobility patterns can only be self-sufficient if PV efficiency increases, and all of the roof plus most of the facade can be covered with PV. All self-sufficient cases are technically feasible but more expensive than fully electrified grid-connected cases. Self-sufficiency may even become cost-competitive in some cases depending on storage and fossil fuel prices. Thus, if political measures improve their financial attractiveness or individuals decide to shoulder the necessary investments, self-sufficient buildings may start to become increasingly prevalent.

What Affects the Diffusion of New Energy Vehicles Financial Subsidy Policy? Evidence from Chinese Cities.

Designing and implementing effective new energy vehicle (NEV) policy are policy priorities for policymakers and energy policy scholars. However, the formulation, adoption, and diffusion of the NEV policies have not been fully examined in the extant literature. This article explores the mechanisms driving the diffusion of local financial subsidy policy for NEVs in China. In this context, we aim at analyzing the factors affecting the diffusion of local financial subsidies for NEVs in cities, to explain why some cities have taken the lead in adopting local financial subsidy policies for NEVs, while other cities have lagged behind. Based on a data set of 286 cities in China from 2009 to 2016, and with event history analysis (EHA) to analyze the strategic behaviors of local governments, we found that the number of the city's neighbors that have adopted the NEV policy, the financial incentive policy of the provincial government, the administrative ranking of the city, the city's financial situation and innovation capacity have a direct impact on whether the city adopts a local financial subsidy policy for NEVs. This study has practical implications for policymakers in designing and promoting the spread of NEV policies.

"Beasts"-New Zealand's utility vehicles: their climate change emissions and macho marketing.

Vehicle emissions are an important contributor to the growth of greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand. Here we explore the role of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) and light utility vehicles (utes) in this problem. Marketed as macho symbols of toughness and dominance, often through comparisons with savage predators, these vehicles are promoted largely to male consumers. Eight out of 10 of the highest-selling new light vehicles in 2018 were SUVs or diesel-powered utes, with the latter standing out as the heaviest emitters of CO2, as well as posing health hazards through their emissions of fine particulates and NOx. The current popularity of these vehicles may create resistance to some of the substantive regulatory steps which will be needed if New Zealand is to meet its climate change commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement. An example of such an initiative is the current government proposal for a Clean Car Standard and Clean Car Discount-a 'feebate' scheme which confers a price advantage on new electric vehicles and smaller cars.

Investigation of household private car ownership considering interdependent consumer preference.

People are connected by various social networks, resulting in the interdependence of consumer choice. Therefore, it is very important and realistic to assume choice interdependence in private car ownership modeling. In this paper, we investigate the interdependence of private car ownership choice using a spatial autoregressive binary probit model estimated by the Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method. Constructing the autoregressive matrix demographically shows that the private car ownership choice of a household is dependent on other household choices. Compared with the pure binary probit model estimated by the MCMC method, the spatial autoregressive model achieves a significant improvement both in loglikelihood value and log marginal density value, which are calculated using the importance sampling method of Newton and Raftery, from approximately -202 to approximately -63 and from -208 to -145, respectively. Moreover, the results indicated by the spatial autoregressive probit model suggest that the number of children, the ownership of an apartment or the availability of a parking lot are positively and significantly associated with the private car ownership level. To test the out-of-sample performance of the model, we estimate the model using 600 data points and test it using another 148 data points. The results indicate that the predictive power is greatly improved. Finally, we analyze the augmented parameter and discover that it is associated with the parking variable in addition to the license variable.

Did UberX reduce ambulance volume?

Ambulances are a vital part of emergency medical services. However, they come in single, high intervention form, which is at times unnecessary, resulting in excessive costs for patients and insurers. In this paper, we ask whether UberX's entry into a city caused substitution away from traditional ambulances for low-risk patients, reducing overall volume. Using a city-panel over-time and leverage that UberX enter markets sporadically over multiple years, we find that UberX entry reduced the per capita ambulance volume by at least 6.7%. Our result is robust to numerous specifications.

Net-societal and net-private benefits of some existing vehicle crash avoidance technologies.

Most light-duty vehicle crashes occur due to human error. Many of these crashes could be avoided or made less severe with the aid of crash avoidance technologies. These technologies can assist the driver in maintaining control of the vehicle when a possibly dangerous situation arises by issuing alerts to the driver and in a few cases, responding to the situation itself. This paper estimates the societal and private benefits and costs associated with three crash avoidance technologies, blind-spot monitoring, lane departure warning, and forward-collision warning, for all light duty passenger vehicles in the U.S. for the year 2015. The three technologies could collectively prevent up to 1.6 million crashes each year including 7200 fatal crashes. In this paper, the authors estimated the net-societal benefits to the overall society from avoiding the cost of the crashes while also estimating the private share of those benefits that are directly affecting the crash victims. For the first generation warning systems, net-societal benefits and net-private benefits are positive. Moreover, the newer generation of improved warning systems and active braking should make net benefits even more advantageous.

The Observational Physician and surGEon Automobile Response (TOP GEAR) survey.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether surgeons and junior doctors intending to pursue careers in surgery are more likely to purchase more expensive vehicles and to replace them sooner than colleagues of similar seniority pursuing non-surgical careers. DESIGN AND SETTING: Survey of practising medical officers at an Australian tertiary referral hospital. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Car value; proportion of doctors who bought their car new; median time to replacement of vehicle. RESULTS: 154 doctors participated in the survey (17% response rate). 49% were interns, residents or unaccredited registrars, 18% were accredited registrars or fellows, and 31% were consultants; 40% of respondents were surgical trainees or consultants. 59% of surgical trainees and consultants purchased their car new, compared with 38% of non-surgical doctors (P = 0.013); 52% of doctors in the junior surgeon group purchased their car new, compared with 28% of non-surgeon junior doctors (P = 0.019). Median car value was $16 500 (IQR, $9350-37 000) for surgeons and $8500 (IQR, $4400-14 100) for non-surgeons (P < 0.001); 30% of surgeons owned cars valued at more than $50 000, compared with 6% of non-surgeons (P = 0.025). The median time to replacement was 5-7 years for surgeons and 7-10 years for non-surgeons (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Surgeons more frequently purchase their cars new and replace their cars earlier than non-surgeons, and the median value of their vehicles is higher. These findings were consistent across all levels of seniority.

Live and Let Die? Life Cycle Human Health Impacts from the Use of Tire Studs.

Studded tires are used in a number of countries during winter in order to prevent accidents. The use of tire studs is controversial and debated because of human health impacts from increased road particle emissions. The aims of this study are to assess whether the use of tire studs in a Scandinavian studded passenger car actually avoids or causes health impacts from a broader life cycle perspective, and to assess the distribution of these impacts over the life cycle. Life cycle assessment is applied and the disability-adjusted life years indicator is used to quantify the following five types of health impacts: (1) impacts saved in the use phase, (2) particle emissions in the use phase, (3) production system emissions, (4) occupational accidents in the production system, and (5) conflict casualties from revenues of cobalt mining. The results show that the health benefits in the use phase in general are outweighed by the negative impacts during the life cycle. The largest contribution to these negative human health impacts are from use phase particle emissions (67⁻77%) and occupational accidents during artisanal cobalt mining (8⁻18%). About 23⁻33% of the negative impacts occur outside Scandinavia, where the benefits occur. The results inform the current debate and highlight the need for research on alternatives to tire studs with a positive net health balance.

Path optimization of taxi carpooling.

The problem that passengers are hard to take taxis while empty driving rate is high widely exists under the traditional taxi operation mode. The implementation of taxi carpooling mode can alleviate the problem in a certain extent. The objective of this study is to optimize the taxi carpooling path. Firstly, the taxi carpooling path optimization model with single objective and its extended model with multiple objectives are built respectively. Then, the single objective path optimization model of taxi carpooling is solved based on the improved single objective genetic algorithm, and the multiple-objective path optimization model of taxi carpooling is solved based on the improved multiple-objective genetic algorithm. Finally, a case study is carried out based on a road network with 24 nodes. The case study results show the path optimization models and algorithms of taxi carpooling proposed in the paper can quickly get the taxi carpooling path, and can increase the income of taxi driver while reduce the cost for passengers.

NEV supply chain coordination and sustainability considering sales effort and risk aversion under the CVaR criterion.

In a two-echelon new energy vehicle (NEV) supply chain consisting of a risk-neutral manufacturer and a risk-averse retailer, the coordination and sustainability problem is investigated. The risk-averse retailer, who makes sales effort and undertakes the incurred effort cost, decides the order quantity and sales effort level under the Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) criterion. We derive the optimal centralized decisions of a vertically integrated supply chain where the retailer is owned by the manufacturer. Taking such a centralized case as the benchmark, we prove that the subsidy-sharing-based wholesale price (SS-WP) contract fails to coordinate the NEV supply chain under the decentralized case where the retailer makes decisions independently. Then we design a subsidy-sharing-based sales rebate/penalty (SS-SRP) contract and derive the contract parameters to achieve coordination. We evaluate the coordination efficiency of this contract and find that a well-designed SS-SRP contract can promote the NEV sales and lead to a Pareto-improving win-win situation for both the NEV manufacturer and retailer compared to the non-coordination case. A series of numerical experiments are carried out to compare the effects of significant parameters under the SS-WP and SS-SRP contract and provide additional observations and implications, including an indication of the necessary conditions to sustainably maintain the NEV supply chain.

Why is the market for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) moving slowly?

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) could be a good short term option to help achieve global targets regarding road transport greenhouse gas emissions. Several common and country-specific public policies based on price or tax rebates are established in order to encourage the adoption of HEVs. The present research empirically assesses market preferences for HEVs in Spain, looking at the role of subsidies. An interactive internet-based survey was conducted in a representative sample (N = 1,200) of Spanish drivers. Drivers are willing to pay an extra amount of €1,645 for a HEV model compared to a conventional vehicle, premium which is well below the price markup for these cars. Therefore, current levels of economic subsidies applied in isolation to promote these types of vehicles may have a quite limited effect in extending their use. Overall, it is found that drivers have clear misconceptions about HEVs, which affect their purchasing choices and perceptions. Therefore, a policy mix of various incentives (including informational campaigns) may be required in order to stimulate the demand for HEVs.

Rideshare-Based Medical Transportation for Medicaid Patients and Primary Care Show Rates: A Difference-in-Difference Analysis of a Pilot Program.

BACKGROUND: Transportation to primary care is a well-documented barrier for patients with Medicaid, despite access to non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) benefits. Rideshare services, which offer greater convenience and lower cost, have been proposed as an NEMT alternative. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of rideshare-based medical transportation on the proportion of Medicaid patients attending scheduled primary care appointments. DESIGN: In one of two similar practices, all eligible Medicaid patients were offered rideshare-based transportation ("rideshare practice"). A difference-in-difference analytical approach using logistic regression with robust standard errors was employed to compare show rate changes between the rideshare practice and the practice where rideshare was not offered ("control practice"). PARTICIPANTS: Our study population included residents of West Philadelphia who were insured by Medicaid and were established patients at two academic general internal medicine practices located in the same building. INTERVENTION: We designed a rideshare-based transportation pilot intervention. Patients were offered the service during their reminder call 2 days before the appointment, and rides were prescheduled by research staff. Patients then called research staff to schedule their return trip home. MAIN MEASURES: We assessed the effect of offering rideshare-based transportation on appointment show rates by comparing the change in the average show rate for the rideshare practice, from the baseline period to the intervention period, with the change at the control practice. KEY RESULTS: At the control practice, the show rate declined from 60% (146/245) to 51% (34/67). At the rideshare practice, the show rate improved from 54% (72/134) to 68% (41/60). In the adjusted model, controlling for patient demographics and provider type, the odds of showing up for an appointment before and after the intervention increased 2.57 (1.10-6.00) times more in the rideshare practice than in the control practice. CONCLUSIONS: Results of this pilot program suggest that offering a rideshare-based transportation service can increase show rates to primary care for Medicaid patients.

Subsidies to Increase Remote Pollution?

During the last decade, Central Europe became a cynosure for the world for its unparalleled public support for renewable energy. For instance, the production of electricity from purpose-grown biomass received approximately twice the amount in subsidies as that produced from biowaste. Moreover, the guaranteed purchase price of electricity from solar panels was set approximately five times higher than that from conventional sources. This controversial environmental donation policy led to the devastation of large areas of arable land, a worsening of food availability, unprecedented market distortions, and serious threats to national budgets, among other things. Now, the first proposals to donate the purchase price of electric vehicles (and related infrastructure) from national budgets have appeared for public debate. Advocates of these ideas argue that they can solve the issue of electricity overproduction, and that electric vehicles will reduce emissions in cities. However, our analysis reveals that, as a result of previous scandals, environmental issues have become less significant to local citizens. Given that electric cars are not yet affordable for most people, in terms of local purchasing power, this action would further undermine national budgets. Furthermore, while today's electromobiles produce zero pollution when operated, their sum of emissions (i.e. global warming potential) remains much higher than that of conventional combustion engines. Therefore, we conclude that the mass usage of electromobiles could result in the unethical improvement of a city environment at the expense of marginal regions.

Forecasting electric vehicles sales with univariate and multivariate time series models: The case of China.

The market demand for electric vehicles (EVs) has increased in recent years. Suitable models are necessary to understand and forecast EV sales. This study presents a singular spectrum analysis (SSA) as a univariate time-series model and vector autoregressive model (VAR) as a multivariate model. Empirical results suggest that SSA satisfactorily indicates the evolving trend and provides reasonable results. The VAR model, which comprised exogenous parameters related to the market on a monthly basis, can significantly improve the prediction accuracy. The EV sales in China, which are categorized into battery and plug-in EVs, are predicted in both short term (up to December 2017) and long term (up to 2020), as statistical proofs of the growth of the Chinese EV industry.