How Private Car Drivers View Vehicle Ownership during the ‘Clean Vehicles in Stockholm’ Project: - An Exploratory Consumer Case Study Prepared for the City of Stockholm Environment and Health Administration

Abstract: In response to concerns about climate change the City of Stockholm has set the goal of being entirely fossil fuel free by 2050. One of the ways in which they are attempting to achieve this is through the Clean Vehicles in Stockholm project. The Project focuses on reducing the heavy impact of car emissions by providing incentives for people to purchase less environmentally harmful alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs). Despite the Project, conventionally fuelled vehicles continue to outsell AFVs. This thesis focuses on qualitative exploration of private consumer views and experiences of conventional and alternative fuel vehicle ownership during the Project. The findings are used to generate recommendations for policy makers and to lay the foundations for further empirical research. The literature review and twelve embedded single-case interviews indicate that consumer, product, market, and information variables determine consumers’ views of vehicle ownership, though they do not result in radically different views of conventional vehicle and AFV ownership. The findings suggest that meeting the 2050 target will likely, amongst other things, require further wide-scale sampling as well as a reconsideration of policy to encourage more sustainable travel in general.