The Allure of Technology: How France and California Promoted Electric Vehicles to Reduce Urban Air Pollution

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. All advanced industrialized societies face the problem of air pollution produced by motor vehicles. In spite of striking improvements in internal combustion engine technology, air pollution in most urban areas is still measured at levels determined to be harmful to human health. Throughout the 1990s and beyond, California and France both chose to improve air quality by means of technological innovation, adopting legislation that promoted clean vehicles, prominently among them, electric vehicles (EVs). In California, policymakers chose a technology-forcing approach, setting ambitious goals (e.g., zero emission vehicles), establishing strict deadlines and issuing penalties for non-compliance. The policy process in California called for substantial participation from the public, the media, the academic community and the interest groups affected by the regulation. The automobile and oil industries bitterly contested the regulation, in public and in the courts. In contrast, in France the policy process was non-adversarial, with minimal public participation and negligible debate in academic circles. We argue that California's stringent regulation spurred the development of innovative hybrid and fuel cell vehicles more effectively than the French approach. However, in spite of the differences, both California and France have been unable to put a substantial number of EVs on the road. Our comparison offers some broad lessons about how policy developments within a culture influence both the development of technology and the impact of humans on the environment. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may Keywords IntroductionIn an effort to reduce air pollution in Los Angeles and other metropolitan areas in the state of California, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) 1 adopted in September 1990 a plan to encourage the development and use of zero emission vehicles (ZEV). At the time only battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs) qualified as ZEVs while other potential ZEV technologies, such as fuel cells and flywheels, were far from being commercially viable. The ZEV mandate was just one component of a multi-pronged attack on pollution, but it was the one that attracted the most attention throughout the following decade.The regulation created in California is an example of technology-forcing; it required the regulated industry to produce and sell efficient electric vehicles, within a set period of time, even though the technology was not fully developed when the re...

An essay on innovations for sustainable development

“…The Californian zero emission vehicles regulation to introduce electric cars is often presented as an illustrative case of such a policy of forcing environmental innovations with a benefit to the US manufacturers because they gain competitive advantage by experience in the state. But precisely this example also shows how non-compliance with the regulations has invoked successive policy amendments to weaken its stringency, which discouraged the innovative spur (Calef & Goble 2005).…”

National policy-making and the promotion of electric vehicles

“…It is this gap between societal good and profitability that underpins the need for public policy engagement and drives national agendas which in turn translate into the development of lead markets by national policymakers, as will be discussed. While authors like Kiempe, Beise, Zubaryeva and Massiani took a top down approach to understand technological diffusion, work by authors such as Calef and Goble (2005) and Greene (2010) considered the role of local and regional factors in the process of promulgation. California provides one international example of how regulatory actions driven by social and economic concerns at a regional level can organically promote specific technologies at the national, a point that will be considered later in this paper, when the role of European cities in driving the decarbonisation agenda are examined (Calef & Goble, 2005;Greene et al, 2010).…”

National policy-making and the promotion of electric vehicles

“…While authors like Kiempe, Beise, Zubaryeva and Massiani took a top down approach to understand technological diffusion, work by authors such as Calef and Goble (2005) and Greene (2010) considered the role of local and regional factors in the process of promulgation. California provides one international example of how regulatory actions driven by social and economic concerns at a regional level can organically promote specific technologies at the national, a point that will be considered later in this paper, when the role of European cities in driving the decarbonisation agenda are examined (Calef & Goble, 2005; Greene et al, 2010). However, in terms of low carbon transport policy the situation is complicated by a host of competing priorities of which environmental concerns are but one, if crucial, factor.…”