Will Californians buy alternative-fuel vehicles such as electric cars and, if so, how many such buyers are likely to reside in each region of the state? Power companies need such information so they can add substations and circuits to meet the anticipated needs. The utilities estimate that recharging a single electric car in a garage overnight would be like adding a whole new house to the neighborhood. A team of researchers from the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies (including individuals from UC Irvine) and the UC Davis Graduate School of Management has developed a model to project California vehicle purchases over the next few years. "This model is based on sequences of vehicle transactions, whereas most existing models provide a snapshot of a cross-section of households and deal with what a consumer will buy," says David Bunch, professor of management. "The new model is built on a sequence of surveys beginning in 1990 that gathered detailed demographic information from nearly 5,000 households." The survey examined past vehicle purchases and took participants through a series of preference tasks, asking them, for instance, which of several hypothetical cars they might purchase. Bunch says they can now get a good picture of the entire state using this model system.