The emergence of an electric mobility trajectory
Highlights
► A socio-technical analysis of the recent history of electric vehicles. ► An exploration of the future of electric vehicles. ► We highlight the interaction of vehicle technology and mobility patterns.
Introduction
In the last five years there has emerged new momentum for (battery) electric vehicles (BEVs), after a period of dissapointment in BEV around the turn of the 21st century. In this paper, we describe developments in electric mobility before and after 2005 and we analyse the emergence of a trajectory of electric moblity. The central thesis of the paper is that electric mobility has crossed a critical threshold and is benefitting from various developments: some technological, both within and outside the automotive sector, and some developments in the social context of car mobility. Special attention is given to interaction effects between the two and how these work out for the future of battery electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
We adopt a socio-technical transition perspective as an instrument for our analysis, which does not prioritize social and technical elements, but sees these as inexorably linked (Rip and Kemp, 1998, Hoogma et al., 2002, Geels, 2002, Geels, 2005, Geels and Schot, 2007). The socio-technical approach is both structuralistic and actor-based, highlighting the close alignment of social and technical elements, including product technology, industry, markets, consumer behavior, policy, infrastructure, spatial arrangements and cultural meaning’ (Geels, 2005). Such a view is instrumental for understanding change that is not driven by single factors such as price or technological change, but typically involves co-evolution between multiple developments. The perspective is also actor-based, for it addresses actor perceptions, strategies, actions and interactions between car drivers, car manufacturing firms, policy makers and public opinion. Therefore, it differs from functionalistic approaches that tend to focus on system functions being fulfilled (e.g., in industry sector assessments and comparisons of various technologies) or pure economic approaches (where cost, performance, prices, incentives are the main variables).
The socio-technical transition perspective is instrumental to explain dynamic stability and incremental change on the one hand, and radical innovations and system change on the other. To explain change, it uses concepts such as ‘niches’, which are protected spaces where potentially radical innovations emerge, and ‘socio-technical landscape’, which are external developments that can create pressure on existing systems (or better ‘regimes’). To explain stability, the notion of sociotechnical regime plays an important role, which helps to describe how car mobility is locked into internal combustion engines because the societal context is adapted to their use in terms of expected speed and power, training and knowledge and maintenance networks, regulations (e.g., safety, maximum speed), cultural acceptance, etc. The transition perspective deviates from simple drivers and linear cause-and-effect relationships because it puts emphasis on mutually reinforcing developments and (sometimes unexpected) alignments, co-evolution, circular causality, knock-on effects, and hype-disappointment cycles.
There are various ways in which a possible transition towards electric car mobility could occur, and Geels and Schot (2007) have suggested four generic types of ‘transition pathways’. In this paper, the term pathway is, however, necessarily broader that the pathways of Geels and Schot, since the automotive sector may not go through transition at all. Therefore we use the term pathway synonymous to scenario, for instance regarding pathways of automobility, referring to possible future developmental path of the car mobility sector (which may involve various technologies). We distinguish the related term trajectory from pathway, and we use trajectory in relation to a specific technology, for instance a trajectory of electric mobility, similar to how various studies on technological trajectories apply the term. In this terminology the future pathway of a sector may thus consist of a range of technological trajectories.
The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 explains the stability of the sector and the lack of momentum of the electric mobility (EM) niche before 2005 by addressing the alignment of social and technical elements, including regulations, pilot projects on the new technology, demand structures and responses in the industry. Section 3 analyses EM developments after 2005, what we termed ‘present continuous’ to describe how the allignment of social and technical elements is becoming more malleable through certain trends but also through the deliberate practice of a few specific actors. Section 4 examines prospects for the electrification of automobility and, finally, Section 5 summarizes the factors behind EM activity in recent years.
Section snippets
The recent past: EM niche developments in the 1990s
After the early appearance and decline in the late 19th and early 20th century, interest in battery electric vehicles (BEVs) re-emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in the USA, mainly due to the negative effects of air pollution and rising oil prices. The 1965 Clean Air Act triggered several research institutes and firms to develop electric cars, but results were poor in terms of both technological performance and price compared to their gasoline counterparts (Mom, 1997). At the end of the 1970s,
The present continuous: A new climate for eletric drive
From 2005 onwards, there is a new momentum for electric mobility (EM). This time, climate change concerns rather than urban pollution are driving the efforts towards the electrification of mobility, with peak oil also playing a role. The aftermath the Hurricane Katrina in 2005 sensitized public opinion about the negative effects of climate change, and Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth documentary (May 2006) raised global awareness. Altogether, such events influenced policymakers to develop
The future of e-mobility: Critical factors and interaction effects
The retropective of BEV developments in the last 40 years showed that BEVs have gone through cycles of hype and disillusionment, and were unable to break out their small niche. Neither traditional cars converted to BEVs (produced by regular manufacturers) nor especially dedicated BEVs manufactured by market entrants were able to compete with vehicles with internal combustion engine. BEVs have mostly been sold in unconventional markets: demonstration projects, fleet users committed to green
Looking back and forward
The regime around the internal combustion engine (ICE) car has reigned for more than 100 years. One source of lock-in comes from the production side: it has not been economically attractive to invest in a new technology that has been considered non-competitive in terms of costs. Competition has indeed been fierce in the past decades with many large car manufactures struggling to survive. For these companies, it has been both more attractive and safer to invest in innovation in the existing ICE
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the input of Masaru Yarime (University of Tokio) regarding trends in the Asian automotive markets and his envolvement in the origin of this paper. Also, we would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
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