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Automobile use is a significant contributor to climate change, local air pollution, pedestrian injuries and deaths, declines in physical activity and obesity. A significant proportion of car use is for short trips that can relatively easily be taken with active transportation options--walking or cycling--or with public transportation. In this commentary, we review a number of immediate, practical opportunities to implement policies and programs that reduce short car trips and increase active transportation.

The aim is to understand how private car drivers’ perception of vehicle attributes may affect their intention to adopt electric vehicles (EVs). Data are obtained from a national online survey of potential EV adopters in the UK. The results indicate that instrumental attributes are important largely because they are associated with other attributes derived from owning and using EVs, including pleasure of driving (hedonic attributes) and identity derived from owning and using EVs (symbolic attributes). People who believe that a pro-environmental self-identity fits with their self-image are more likely to have positive perceptions of EV attributes. Perceptions of EV attributes are only very weakly associated with car-authority identity.