California Vehicle Survey

The California Vehicle Survey provides information on shifting transportation choice trends by capturing consumer preferences of various vehicle attributes. The California Energy Commission uses the survey to forecast transportation fuel needs in the state and to provide insights on key topics that inform transportation policy.

The household and commercial vehicle survey data are used to update the light-duty vehicle choice models. These models are used to generate light duty vehicle demand forecasts and provide understanding about such questions as:

  • How many light duty cars and trucks will be on California roads?
  • How much and what kind of fuels will they use?
  • Does California transportation energy infrastructure meet the future needs in California?

In addition to the main survey of California vehicle owners, the 2017 survey included an add-on survey of Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PEV) owners and the 2019 survey included an add-on survey of Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) owners, in both household and commercial light duty vehicle market segments.

The 2019 survey had over 6,000 household and commercial survey respondents, including over 700 PEV owners and 300 FCEV owners.

The information will help planners, energy suppliers, and policy makers anticipate the changing needs of California vehicle owners.

Housing Type by PEV Ownership

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This visualization compares housing of electric vehicle owners and non-electric vehicle owners.

Visualization

Importance of Incentives in Decision to Acquire a ZEV

Commercial and household ZEV owners were asked to indicate how important different incentives were in their decision to buy or lease a ZEV. The results were similar between the two ownerships, with financial incentives tending to be most important overall.

This visualization shows how important different incentives were in respondents’ decisions to buy or lease an electric vehicle.

Visualization

Vehicle Miles Traveled by Fuel Type

This visualization depicts the self-reported annual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) for plug-in electric vehicles (PEV), fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV) and internal combustion engine vehicles (ICE) in both the ZEV owner surveys as well as the non-ZEV owner surveys, by segment. Household PEVs and FCEVs are much less frequently driven fewer than 5,000 miles per year than household ICE vehicles. Commercial PEVs are much less frequently driven over 25,000 miles per year than commercial ICE vehicles.

This visualization compares the annual vehicle miles traveled by electric vehicles and non-electric vehicles.

Visualization

Accessing the Complete Survey Data

The 2013, 2017 and 2019 survey data are at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at Transportation Secure Data Center (TSDC). Create a free account to access the data.

The data include information on the participants’ current household and commercial light duty vehicles and their preferences for a hypothetical set of vehicles. The data also includes limited information on travel behavior.

Respondent Profile

The full breakdown of the survey responses was as follows. Note that many respondents reported results for multiple vehicles:

Respondents PEV Owners FCEV Owners Non-ZEV Owners Total Respondents
Household 489 304 3,381 4,136
Commercial 265 11 2,027 2,303
Vehicles PEV FCEV Non-ZEV Total
Household 553 306 7,109 8,049
Commercial 323 13 4,989 5,325

Accessing Survey Reports

Resources Systems Group prepared the technical reports for the 2017 California Vehicle Survey for the Energy Commission. The first report is on survey design and light duty vehicle choice models. The second report includes design details and additional models. 

Surveys

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