Assessing transition policies for the diffusion of electric vehicles

Abstract

Though hybrid, electric or fuel cell cars have the potential to lower carbon emissions in transport, they have not yet penetrated the market sufficiently. Policy makers want to solve that issue but have only limited insights on how to actually allocate their limited resources. To address this, research has started examining the transition of socio-technical systems and the roll-out of past technologies. This has led to the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) framework, which offers a basis to discuss sustainability transitions, transition patterns and pathways. Though it already has provided relevant insights for policy makers on how they can achieve their transition targets, the MLP currently only offers a qualitative framework that only focuses on a narrative understanding of transitions. Quantitative approaches, however, lack the insights from the MLP research strand. Hence, an appropriate mean to assess the effectiveness of policies or firm strategies with regard to future transition pathways is missing. This PhD addresses these shortcomings, creating links between transition science and modelling to allow the examination of sustainability transitions. The outputs help identify suitable policy measures to achieve desired transitions that are compatible with governments’ targets - hence to create (Mission-Oriented) Transition Policies that satisfy environmental and industrial targets.