Electric Vehicles (EVs) whichmimicthe current car-based system, are not the answer to the epochal challenge of decarbonising transport. In his mobility justice critique of EV, Hendersonhighlights three reasons for this:
- EVs perpetuate a broken car-based mobility system. They actively detract from, or even physically displace, compact city innovations, and active and green mobility alternatives.
- Thinking about mobility beyond the local scale, the environmental impact of EVs and their batteries is enormously damaging.
- There are deep injustices in the automobility system, which are exacerbated by electrifying it.
Add to this the fact that producing enough electric vehicles to replace fossil fuelled cars would result in the UK failing to meet the Paris carbon targets even before they take to the road.
While mobile elites now aspire to electric minis orTeslas, a growing precariat can barely afford the journey from suburban estates to the job centre or the food bank, and environmental impacts are felt most by those trapped in poverty elsewhere.
The wholesale turn toelectrification of theexistingmobility system is a form of solutionism – a technological fix for a complex socio-technical challenge that is bound to fail.
For the reasons outlined above,EVs score low on Societal ReadinessLevels.Although an increasing number of people are using the technology as a convenient way to ‘green’ a car-based lifestyle, EVs fall short on their ability to deliver on carbon targets or to contribute to the public good.
EVs arecurrentlypredominantly thought of as replacements for existingvehicles, oreven asenabling an increase in private vehicles.Yet, EVsare a technology with potential for transformative change. Electrificationof shared mobility, via car clubs and lift-share, for example, couldsupport new forms of multi-modal transport, andcapitalise ontrendsto leave automobility behind.
While some studiessuggest an increased turn to the car motivated by fears of Covid19 infection, others document‘strong behavioural changes in physical and virtual mobility associated with the pandemic’ and argue that these changes constitute‘a ‘living lab’ in which to explore the possibilities fordisintegrating the boundaries of the automobility system’.
Amore proactive and creative consideration ofthesocietal readinessof EVcould beused to inspire a moresystemicsocio-technical approach to innovation.
Mobilityservice modelswhichcould positivelydisruptinclude:
- Ride-sharemobility electrification–innovation of vehicle designs and services which offer alternatives to current public/private forms of provision, such ason-demand minibus services (e.g.Arriva click).
- Vehicle-share, placing charging NOT near homes and in city centres but at multimodal hubs, encouraging car-clubs.
- Extend access to active travelbyinfrastructuringfor electric bikes not cars.
In the early 1990s, sustainable transport policy was concerned with a broad set of issues.These included: road congestion, the loss of countryside, and the disturbance of rural and semi-rural areas due to road building or the reallocation of land forparking.
Nowthe problem is debated only in terms of emissions targets. National policy in relation to all forms of transport is heavily focused on vehicle technology to the detriment of other possibilities.
These policiesand the focus on private EVsactually reinforcecurrent patterns of consumption, tying us to a future in which the use of private cars continues to dominate and increase. This is reflected in the substantial road building programme which comes part and parcel with low-emissions vehicle policy.
Covid19 and responses to climate change have shown that societies areready and uniquely positioned for a system change to our mobility systems. Now is the time to have vision and implement it.EVs can certainly play a part, but as a positive disruption to the current system, rather than a substitute for it.
Henderson, J. (2020) EVs are not the answer: A mobility justice critique of Electric Vehicletransitions,Annals of the American Association of Geographers, vol. 110, no. 6, pp.1993-2010.
Taffel, S. (2018)HopefulExtinctions? Tesla, Technological Solutionism and theAnthropocene’,Culture Unbound Journal of Current Cultural Research, vol. 10, no. 2, pp.163-184
Wang, L.; Wells, P. Automobilities after SARS-CoV-2: A Socio-Technical Perspective. Sustainability 2020, 12, 5978.
Spurling, N. (2014) Tesla’sTechnocarsare the Right Answer to the Wrong Question,The Conversation,.
First published at , written by Monika Buscher and Nicola Spurling
