
The Blue Hour
Why Consumers Reject Cheaper, Cleaner Cars — Dr. Werner Antweiler on the Economics of Electric-Vehicle Adoption
In this conversation, I speak with Dr. Werner Antweiler, an economist and Associate Professor at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, where he holds the Chair in International Trade Policy and chairs the Strategy and Business Economics Division. He is also an associate editor of the journal *Resource and Energy Economics* and a faculty member of UBC’s Clean Energy Research Centre. Educated at the University of Cologne and the University of Toronto, his research spans international trade, environmental and energy economics, electricity markets and applied econometrics. His published work has examined the relationship between trade and the environment, renewable energy and electricity storage, international hydrogen trade, biofuels, vehicle emissions and transportation policy. He is also the author of *Elements of Environmental Management*, an interdisciplinary book bringing together environmental economics, law, engineering and business strategy. His latest paper, *Carbon Pricing, Capital Bias, and Electric Vehicle Adoption*, is forthcoming in the *Canadian Journal of Economics*. It examines why consumers may reject a cleaner technology even when it would cost them less over its lifetime—and what that means for carbon pricing, electric-vehicle subsidies and the design of environmental policy.

