Analyzing Chinese consumers' perception for biofuels implementation: The private vehicles owner's investigating in Nanjing

The aim of this paper is to analyze consumers' awareness and attitudes towards biofuels implementation in road transportation sector of China with respect to different consumption groups. Firstly, the status and future trends have been reviewed, which focuses on the private vehicles development, energy demands of road transportation sector and biofuels. Furthermore, a comprehensive survey has been conducted for 374 private vehicle drivers (owners) in Nanjing. A questionnaire survey method is implemented to collect information including respondents' awareness, brief of biofuels, selection attitudes to biofuels and views on policies. Furthermore, the biofuels selection motives of respondents have been concluded into two main factors, purchasing pressures and product attraction. Then the respondents were divided into three clusters and compared. The results indicate that 90% of the respondents need to know more about biofuels implementation, and the majority of the respondents emphasize the active significance of reducing GHG emissions to improve energy security and mitigate energy crisis. But 55.6% of the respondents think that biofuels technology is still not mature. It is found that the different perceptions of biofuels between 192 passenger vehicle drivers (PVD) and 182 freight vehicle drivers (FVD). The former focuses on fuel price and fuel performance, while the latter pays more attention to fuel availability. Besides, PVD concentrate on fuel-related attributes while FVD focus on policy-related factors. The survey results give rise to some deeply consideration about the various preferences and awareness on biofuels among different consumer groups. These findings in this study will help to understand the consumer's energy consumption behaviors and improve the further implementation for biofuels in Nanjing city. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.