Transition to electric vehicles: the importance of macro and micro influences on spatial and temporal patterns

Abstract

The climate crisis is widely recognized as being caused by unsustainable consumption and production patterns across various social domains, which motivates the demand for an acceleration of transformative changes with the goal of sustainability. Socio-technical transitions, offers a path forward. That said, a core impediment is an incomplete understanding of how multiple elements co-evolve in different contexts. Various lenses, theories, and approaches have been used to analyse and explain technology adoption and diffusion in societies; these can be characterised as macro-level (‘structure’) or micro-level (‘agency’), but to date the linkages between them in understanding transition processes have been under-explored. This gap provides a research opportunity for the thesis to question in what ways can macro-level and micro-level lenses explain the spatial and temporal patterns of the transition process to electric vehicles (EVs), an example of a transition for the decarbonization of mobility.

With specific reference to Canada, the thesis aims to illuminate the multi-dimensionality and complexity of how the transition to EVs is unfolding, using a quantitative approach including indicator development and statistical modelling. The thesis adopts two complementary components. One aims to describe and explain the spatial and temporal patterns of transition to EVs at a national level between 2017 and 2022 by drawing upon the ‘geography of transitions’ literature and modelling secondary data of new EV registration by seven provinces in Canada by quarter. The other component seeks to understand and assess changes of consumers’ likelihood and perceptions to purchase EVs in one municipality, Waterloo Region, between 2020 and 2023, framed by ‘diffusion of innovation’ concepts and based on primary data from two public surveys. In both analyses, robust models highlighted the importance of various factors in leading to EV adoption and diffusion.

These macro-level and micro-level analyses both depict the transition to EVs in Canada as proceeding at a slow pace, with variations across space and time and society. The micro-level analysis further suggests that the transition is hampered by the resistance of nearly half of the population in the local context. Longitudinal dynamics of individual consumers’ perceptions of EVs and differences and changes at the landscape level mutually reinforce each other. For example, consumers’ recognition of EVs’ environmental benefits have the most substantial influence on people’s interest in EVs, which also echoes the significant role of societal environmentalism, as one of the representations of informal localized institutions at a provincial level, in driving the EV transition. The importance of EVs’ economic perspectives in individuals’ likelihood to adopt EVs increased between 2020 and 2023, which is aligned with the considerable influence of rising gasoline prices on the increase of new EV registrations in Canada.

The findings of the two analyses raise concerns about whether Canada can achieve its commitment of 100% zero-emissions vehicle sales by 2035 and whether EVs can fully penetrate the Canadian market. The Canadian transition process of EVs is a co-evolutionary process with multiple elements interacting with one another. Therefore, no single policy or action can singly accelerate the process. The heterogeneity across consumers highlights the importance of tailored strategies for different consumer segments and the importance of longitudinal dynamics in investigations. In conclusion, macro-level and micro-level lenses are both important in understanding socio-technical transitions due to their integration, synergy, and complementarity.