Willingness to pay for fuel-cell electric vehicles in South Korea

The South Korean government is considering hydrogen as a promising future energy source for transportation and is investing a huge amount of public funds in building hydrogen-fuel infrastructures. This article tries to look into the willingness to pay for a fuel-cell electric vehicle (FCEV). Four attributes chosen in this study are improvement in fuel efficiency, improvement in hydrogen station accessibility, decrease in air pollutants and carbon dioxide emissions, and vehicle type. The potential consumers’ trade-offs amidst each of the attributes and price were evaluated in the choice experiment (CE) survey of 1000 people during May 2017 using a random utility maximization model. The CE data were examined through a Bayesian approach to the mixed logit model. The marginal values for a 1 km/L increase in fuel efficiency, a 1%p improvement in hydrogen station accessibility, a 1%p decrease in air pollutants and carbon dioxide emissions, and the shift from sedan to sport utility vehicle are computed to be KRW 1.33 million (USD 1182), 0.28 (249), 2.98 (2649), and 10.47 (9307), respectively. These results can be useful for policy-making and decision-making regarding the FCEVs. For example, they can provide information on how much value potential consumers place on a new FCEV.