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Project Description:

In 2009, the German government revealed its “German Federal Government’s National  Electromobility Development Plan” that attempt to integrate sustainability aspects into the economic decision-making process. The objective was to become the lead market and provider of electric mobility, for instance by having 1 million battery electric vehicles (BEV) on the road until 2020. Two years ahead of 2020, the total share of electric vehicles increased from 1.800 in 2010 to 53.800 in 2017.  At the same time, the proportion of vehicles with a conventional drive (e.g., gasoline and diesel) increased from 41 million to 45 million. That illustrates that a solely quantitative objective of a "specific number" of BEV's is not sufficient to build a sustainable mobility system.

However, to foster such structural changes, a holistic and sustainable vision of future mobility is required, which includes the sustainable development of new infrastructure, new vehicle technology (e.g., autonomous driving), new legislation, new business models as well as a change of recent travel behavior. Therefore, a dedicated innovation system (DIS) perspective will be required, which is at the center of this research project. Furthermore, a theoretical framework will be developed for evaluating the potential of a broader transition at an "early" phase by evaluating recent patterns of socio-technical co-evolution and embedding these in a more comprehensive framework of the structural dynamics involved in transitions.