Factors Influencing Passenger Car Consumer Behavior and their Use in the Environmental Public Policy

This paper aims to make an analysis of passenger car customer behavior with an emphasis on the adoption of low-carbon and fuel efficient vehicles, based on the research existing on the subject. As literature shows, consumer behavior is influenced by instrumental factors as well as affective and symbolic ones. The affective and symbolic factors are not so large researched in the literature in the field. Moreover, the instrumental factors are easiest to tackle by the public authorities in their will to make consumer behavior more environmental responsible. But most of these policies fail to succeed in a large scale because the symbolic and affective factors are not took into account. In this paper we analyse the main ideas existing in the academic literature on the study of the consumer behavior for passenger cars and highlight the role of the car in the consumers’ mind and what blocks adopting environmental friendly cars. This article is among the firsts to approach this important field of using the influence factors of passenger car consumer behavior in the environmental and public policies.