Private Transport and the End of Oil: a Descriptive Analysis of the Austrian Students¿ Views of and Its Implications on Oil Depletion, Hybrids, and Fuel-cells Cars

Oil is regarded as a finite resource, but its exact time of depletion is widely disputed. Nonetheless it can be assumed that humanity faces an end of its worldwide oil resources at some time between 40 to 100 years into the future. As the world wide economy and in particular the emerging markets are more than depended on this resource, alternatives have to be thought about long before oil depletion becomes a reality. Therefore the automotive industry tries to offer various technical solutions to this problem concerning their industry. Alternatives are the petrol-electric hybrid car as a short-term interim solution and hydrogen powered fuel-cell cars as the long-term substitution for cars based on oil-powered internal combustion engines. The question that now remains is how aware are potential future consumers are to this next evolutionary step in private transport. This study focuses on Austrian students as its target group and tries to discern whether this group is even aware of diminishing oil reserves, rising oil prices, of hybrid cars and their petrol-saving potential and of its long-term substitution, fuel-cell cars.