Buys new cars. Owns two or more. Uses a gasoline-powered car for vacations and other long-distance trips. Uses both an electric and gas car for commuting, chauffeuring kids, shopping and other local travel. Likes the idea of helping the environment, especially when more convenient and without extra time or money. That's the profile of a typical "hybrid household," a newly defined market for electric cars that is large enough to satisfy controversial state clean-air mandates, according to a study by University of California, Davis, researchers. In part, the researchers conclude what many already knew: the people who own two or more cars are good candidates for electric cars. What's new is that the electric cars don't have to be any more special than many already on the road. Existing technology is good enough to start and sustain a market for electric vehicles at least through the turn of the century. The findings were published last month in a report to the California Air Resources Board and the California Environmental Protection Agency. The results will be presented at a public forum Wednesday, June 28, in El Monte, Calif., sponsored by the board to discuss consumer marketability of zero-emissions vehicles. Contradicting critics of California's zero-emissions vehicle mandates, the UC Davis study identified a significant household market for electric cars. Three years from now, California will require that 2 percent of most light-duty vehicles offered for sale by large auto manufacturers -- about 20,000 cars -- have zero emissions. In the year 2001, the mandate increases to 5 percent of sales; in 2003, the mandate increases to 10 percent and expands to include smaller car makers. Presently, only battery-powered vehicles meet the zero tailpipe-emissions requirement. The potential market for electric vehicles is at least five times the number of vehicles required by the 1998 mandate, says study co-author Tom Turrentine, a researcher at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. The annual consumer demand for electric cars is at least as high as 7 percent of the new light-duty vehicle market in the state, he says. Assuming an annual market of 1.4 million light-duty vehicles, this translates to at least 100,000 small and compact sedans, compact pick-up trucks and sport-utility vehicles, and minivans. "These results contrast with claims by auto manufacturers that consumers will not buy vehicles with limited driving range," Turrentine says. The researchers surveyed 450 multicar, new-car-buying households in six metropolitan areas of California: San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, Fresno, Santa Barbara, the Los Angeles Basin and San Diego. These types of households buy between 35 and 45 percent of the new light-duty vehicles sold in California every year. The UC Davis survey was designed to provide households with the types of information they would need and might expect to have when a pitch for electric cars is launched. The survey included three-day diaries to track car use and a map to plot locations of household activities, as well as reprints of articles regarding electric and natural gas vehicles and a video tape of electric vehicle use, design and recharging and refueling. Study participants were paid $50 for completing the weeklong survey. If they could choose longer range mid-sized models as well as the shorter range cars, almost half the surveyed consumers would prefer an electric car over gasoline car. This translates to an annual demand for electric cars potentially as high as 15 percent -- about 200,000 -- of new light-duty vehicles. Previously, most analysts have assumed that in the early years state zero-emissions mandates would be met largely by electric vehicle sales to government and corporate fleets, not to consumer households. The existence of hybrid households further bolsters the market, the researchers say. "This hybrid household market segment is defined by how people buy and use their cars," says study co-author Ken Kurani, a researcher at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. "It's not just owning two or more cars; it's what they do with them." Households that own more than one car are managing a small fleet, with many possibilities for vehicle specialization -- for instance, a minivan for vacation travel and a compact sedan for commuting. In the context of a household fleet, an electric vehicle is simply one specialized vehicle within a fleet of specialized vehicles, Kurani says. Within such fleets, many households perceive electric vehicles as good complements to gasoline vehicles, according to the study. Many households already have travel patterns and vehicle use patterns that are compatible with owning at least one vehicle with a range of 100 miles or less. Members of hybrid households do not necessarily consider themselves environmentalists, but they consider the environmental benefits of electric cars a selling point, according to the study. They see electric cars it as a practical transportation tool first and as an expression of environmentalism second, if at all, Turrentine says. The UC Davis study focused on household responses to range and home recharging -- the two most fundamental differences affecting the way people use electric and gasoline cars. Households chose from a variety of vehicle types: smaller, slower "neighborhood vehicles" with ranges of only 40 miles and price tags thousands less than gasoline cars; midsize, faster electric vehicles with ranges of 140 miles that cost a few thousand dollars more than gas cars; or gasoline vehicles comparable to those already owned by the households. "We offered people a wide variety of electric cars, some of which have not been demonstrated yet," Kurani says. "However, if we consider only those households that chose smaller or shorter-range electric vehicles, they still represent an annual market share of approximately 7 percent. The total market share for electric vehicles should be much higher than this since we did not survey fleets or all households." A distinctive feature of the study is the detailed information it provided to households. "One reason previous market studies failed to identify a substantial market for electric vehicles may be that they did not provide survey participants with an adequate understanding of electric vehicles," Turrentine says. Previous low market estimates may be measures of consumer ignorance of electric vehicles, rather than their preferences, the researchers say. The price assumptions may generate some controversy, Kurani says. "The most important conclusion of our work is that at least 7 percent of the market for new light-duty vehicles could be mid-sized electric cars with driving ranges of 60 to 80 miles and smaller electric vehicles with ranges of 40 to 130 miles," Kurani says. "Since these vehicles can be built with low-cost batteries, there is little or no reason to believe that they should cost any more to make than comparably sized gasoline cars." The study was funded by California Air Resources Board, the California Institute of Energy Efficiency and CALSTART. How Do You Know if an Electric Car is Right for You? Based on the UC Davis study's findings, here are some questions consumers can use to decide if an electric vehicle would work for them. yes no 1. Does your household have two or more vehicles? yes no 2. Does your household usually use one particular vehicle for vacations, out-of-town travel and other long trips? yes no 3. Do you ever swap or trade cars among the drivers in your household? yes no 4. Does anyone in your household commute round-trip under 60 miles? yes no 5. Does at least one driver in your household do lots of local driving? yes no 6. Do you have a driveway, garage, carport or dedicated parking space where you park at least one car each night? yes no 7. Does your household own at least one vehicle that is less than full-sized? yes no 8. Does your household ever drive all of its cars more than 100 miles on any given day? yes no 9. Does your household normally buy new cars rather than used cars? yes no 10. Do any of the drivers in your household dislike trips to gas stations or hate the smell of gasoline? yes no 11. Do you think it would be more trouble to go to a gasoline station once a week than to plug in each night at home? If you answered "yes" to most of the questions above, your household may be a good candidate for an electric vehicle in the next decade.