Determining the attitudes of drivers towards electric motor cars by using analytic hierarchy process

There is a rapid increase in the number of cars in Turkey, especially in big cities. Limited reserves of fossil fuels has revealed the idea of using sustainable energy for cars. If electricity used in cars is obtained from sustainable sources, this provides more efficiency in terms of not only the operating costs but also environmentalism. The increasing researches and developments for electric and hybrid cars and announcing the new models with electric motor show that the technology of cars will developed in this way. Electric motor cars' history started with that Briton Michael Farraday used the Volta's chemical battery for a part of his researches, and he have laid the foundations of electric motors with converting the electric energy to kinetic energy in 1821. Even if researches on the electric cars production come up at times, they have never been succeed and popular. The most important issue of electric cars is that ranges and maximum speeds of them do not catch the cars with internal combustion engines. In addition, high battery costs and long charging times are considered to be other factors that restrict the use of electric cars. This study aimed at determining the drivers' car selection criteria in order of importance and the drivers' approach to electric motor cars with evaluating conventional cars with electric motor cars. In addition, the importance ratio of selection criterias are determined with the aim of finding out the positive and negative features of electric motor cars. In this study, cars are classified according to their sizes into 6 segments and car types are not considered. This segments are A, B, C, D, E and F; A is the smallest and F is the biggest. Best-selling car models in each segment in 2014 are determined and the lowest-choice of these cars in different fuel types are used in research. However, any electric motor car is not best-selling car in any segments. All electric motor cars in sales in Turkey in 2015 have been added to the list of cars for evaluating with using the same criterias because of the aim of the study. Nevertheless, the equivalent car models in Europe in A and E segments are examined and added to car list because of that there is no electric motor car in these segments for sale in Turkey. The decision criterias for using the selection of the cars are determined as maximum speed, acceleration time, fuel consumption, range, environmentalism, price and annual cost. Datas in this study were processed with using analytic hierarchy process and priorities of criterias are determined with using participants' pairwise comparisons of criterias. Priorities of criterias are evaluated with datas of cars defined as alternatives, and chosen cars of participants are achieved. The strongest feature of analytic hierarchy process is that individual tendencies are ruled out and the rational results can be reached with the hierarchical structure that focuses the target. The other strongest future of the analytic hierarchy process is that it can convert information about thoughts and feelings of the people that can not be expressed numerically to digital datas. In the study, face to face surveys were done with randomly selected 520 people in the period March-April 2015 in Istanbul. Consistency ratio remains below 10% of the datas of 41 people are not used and datas of 479 people are evaluated. These datas contains users' socio-economic informations, informations about the current car usages and pair-wise comparisons of car selection criterias. Some of criterias are identified for participants. The participants may be active or passive car users and they must live in Istanbul. The survey is about the electric motor cars and their answers will be used for a car choice were not told to participants. They only know that their answers using for identifying the priorities of car choice criterias. It is aimed to prevent prejudgments of participants against electric motor vehicles. In the survey results, socio-economic status of the participants were examined first. 61% of participants are male, and 39% of participants are female. C-segment cars' utilization rate is the highest in all of the sex, marital status, income and age groups. B and D-segment cars are more preferred by men than women, but C-segment cars are more preferred by women than men. B and C-segment cars are more preferred from single people than married people, however this rating is reversed in the D-segment car users.Segments of the cars by income groups were examined. When the incomes increased, the ratio of the utilization of the A-segment cars decreased. As for the age range is seen that the using of the D-segment and E-segment cars increases with age. Car of the participants analyzed for the fuel types. It is observed that 64.5% of the cars work with gasoline, 23.6% of the cars work with diesel, and 11.9% of the cars work with LPG. Among the surveyed people there are nobody that using electric car or hybrid car. The most commonly used type of fuel is gasoline except E-segment cars. Diesel is used at the rate of 71.4% in the E-segment cars. It seems that the highest usage rate of the gasoline is in the A-segment cars with rate of 90.9%. The highest usage rate of the LPG is in the B-segment with rate of 16.2%. There is no use of LPG in the A, E and F-segment cars. Informations about where participants park their cars at home and workplace are used to determine the possibilities of charge if they have electric car or plug-in hybrid car. In addition, average length of their daily trips are used for the range assessment for electric cars. Limit for the average length of daily trips is specified as 75 km. This length is half of the range of the electric car that have the shortest range sales in Turkey. The other half of 150 km is approved for range reduction that is caused by the case of usage and charging the battery incompletely. Drivers that have less than 75 km average daily trips must have a parking area at home or work at least one of them. If they have more than 75 km average daily trips, they must have parking areas both at home and work.It is considered that if they have parking area, they could install the charging unit for electric or plug-in hybrid car. 353 people from 479 in total (73.7%) were able to provide the range and parking conditions. Adequate the number of E and F-segments' users has not been reached. Because of this, the processes were not been applied for users of these segments. Priority of criterias are determined by the answers given by the B, C and D-segment car users. The priorities shows that when buying car, the most important criteria is the annual cost for B-segment, fuel consumption for C-segment and price for D-segment car users. In all segments, the most insignificant criteria as common is the maximum speed. In addition, when the segment of cars increases, the priority of maximum speed increases also, but priorities of fuel consumption, environmentalism, annual cost and range decrease. Analytic hierarchy process continues in their car segment after the priority of criterias for the participants were specified. For example, if a participant uses a B-segment car, his priorities of criterias are evaluated with the B-segment car alternatives. After this process, the priorities and ranking of alternatives are found for participant. Reviews were made based on the first place in the elections of participants. When B-segment car choices were looked, electric motor cars were selected more by men than women. Hybrid car were selected only by single males, and it is not selected by other gender or marital status groups. The selection ratio of the LPG car increases when level of income increases. When age increases, the rate of diesel car selection also increases, but rate of electric car selection decreases. In addition, the selection ratio of the electric car decreases when income and age increases. When looking the B-segment, the rate of the fuel type selections are that diesel is 57,7%, LPG is 14.4%, electric is 11.7%, gasoline is 10.8% and hybrid is 5.4%. The highest rate of hybrid car selection in the B-segment is had by the diesel car users, and the lowest rate is had by gasoline car users. Electric car selection ratio is not changed according to the current fuel type, and it is approximately 10% for all fuel type users. The most remarkable data in C-segment is that the gasoline car was not chosen by any group of users, and all of the groups chose the diesel car with rate about 90%. The selection ratio of hybrid car is 5.7%. In addition, single people chose the hybrid car more than married people and men chose more than women. Selection ratio of hybrid car is 12.5% for LPG car users, 6.3% for gasoline car users and 1.6% for diesel car users. Electric car selection rate for married users is higher than single users' in the D-segment. When income of users increases, the electric car selection increases. When looking the D-segment, the rate of the fuel type selections are that diesel is 56.3%, electric is 39.3% and gasoline is 4.5%. Selection rate of electric car is the lowest for diesel car users (%23.8) and the same for the gasoline and LPG car users (about 40.0%). Electric car selection rate among D-segment users is very high when looking at the current situation. This show that if the correct sales policy were applied, the sales of electric car increased in D-segment. For cars that are ranked as first by the participants, some criterias are reviewed. Average length of their daily trips and prices they can pay for electric cars and prices for conventional and hybrid cars are also analyzed. Looking at conventional cars, it seems that 53.3% of the participants can pay for the car they had chosen. Looking at hybrid cars, it seems that 51.7% of the participants can pay for the car they had chosen. The range limit did not affect the 75.4% of participants who selected electric cars. However the prices are higher than expected level of purchase costs. Only 20.9% of participants who provide the range limit can pay the prices of the electric vehicles. As a result, 15.8% of participants who select the electric cars are available for buying them. When rates of participants who can pay for the car they chose are compared, the rates of participants who chose hybrid cars and conventional cars are close but the rates of the ones who chose electric cars are seriously low. Looking at these results, while the prices of hybrid cars are on the expected level, the prices of electric cars are higher than expected. As a result, there are huge differences rationally between the fuel type of the cars that are used by B, C and D-segment car drivers and the fuel type of the cars those drivers chose. These differences show that drivers can not make their choices with consideration of their own personal importance of criteria levels because of some restrictions like prejudgements, habits, unconsciousness, prices etc. In addition, ranges of electric cars are sufficient for most of the drivers but prices that are higher than the prices of equivalent cars are a dissuasive element even if the car is preferable.