A method for assessing the market potential of new energy-saving technologies

An approach for estimating the market potential of new energy saving technologies is presented. The approach is based on the assumption that consumers implicitly minimize total expected lifetime costs when purchasing new technology. The techniques developed allow simultaneous comparison of any number of competing technologies. An important result of this approach is that technologies can have zero market potential and that these technologies can be identified based solely on technology-specific information, not on attributes of the consumer population. An application of the model is made to the study of market potentials for new automotive technologies.