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Symbolism in California’s early market for hybrid electric vehicles by Reid R. Heffner; Kenneth S. Kurani; Thomas S. Turrentine is a Engineering article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Symbolism in California’s early market for hybrid electric vehicles about?

This study explores the symbolic meanings being created, appropriated, and communicated by the owners of hybrid electric vehicles. As symbolic meanings are shown to be important to hybrid electric vehicle purchase and use, understanding the meanings, as well as their construction and communication, is essential for policy makers and others hoping to promote these new types of vehicles. Hybrid electric vehicles embody combinations of meanings that were previously unavailable from automobiles. Market observers who fail to recognize this struggle to explain why some people buy hybrid electric vehicles. They may characterize buyers as naı ̈ve about calculating payback on fuel economy, or dismiss owners as image-seeking environmentalists. This research belies such simplistic explanations. Through the telling and analysis of buyers’ own stories, this study takes a robust approach to understanding the creation and spread of new symbolic meanings in the automotive market. Data were collected in ethnographic interviews with hybrid electric vehicle owners in the California, and analyzed using methods based on semiotic theory. In particular, the study explores how widely recognized social mea

Who reads Symbolism in California’s early market for hybrid electric vehicles?

Author

Reid R. Heffner; Kenneth S. Kurani; Thomas S. Turrentine

Publisher

Elsevier BV

Published

2007

Language

EN

Field

Engineering (Physical Sciences)