Factors Influencing Consumers' Willingness to Pay and Powertrain Preferences for High-Performance Hybrid Cars

As the automotive industry moves toward electrification, high-performance vehicle manufacturers face the challenge of adopting electrified powertrains while preserving engine sound, mechanical feedback, and driving engagement valued by consumers. This study examines how objective technical knowledge, emotional attachment to internal-combustion-engine (ICE) characteristics, and household income influence consumers' willingness to pay (WTP) and powertrain preferences for high-performance hybrid cars. A quantitative, cross-sectional design was adopted using an online questionnaire completed by 296 respondents with certain automotive and ownership backgrounds. Descriptive statistics, Spearman correlations, chi-square tests, OLS regression, and binary Logit models were used to analysize the relationships between the independent and dependent variables. The results show that ICE emotional attachment was the clearest predictor of WTP: each one-level increase in attachment was associated with a 2.81-percentage-point increase in the premium respondents were willing to pay. Household income showed a weaker, marginally significant positive relationship with WTP, whereas objective technical knowledge had no significant independent effect. None of the three principal variables consistently predicted hybrid powertrain selection. The study concludes that consumers' financial valuation of high-performance hybrid technology is influenced more strongly by emotional value and financial capacity than by technical knowledge, but these factors do not necessarily determine their final powertrain choice.