Abstract
The excitement of advocates, policymakers and automakers for the increasing number of makes and models of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) coming to market, increasing number of PEVs sold in successive years, and growing networks of PEV charging infrastructure is presently lost on the vast majority of the car-buying public—even in California, touted as being among the global PEV market leaders. Sustaining PEV market growth will become problematic if the number of car-owning households paying attention to PEVs is not growing, too. Survey data from California in 2014 and 2017 show no increase over time in the percentage of households that have already purchased, shopped for, or even started to gather information about PEVs. Conceptual frameworks regarding how innovations spread through relevant social groups stipulate communication is necessary between the few early actors and the many more potential later actors. With the goals of improving PEV policy and marketing, we explored what might be said between households who have purchased PEVs and some who have not. Workshops were convened in three regions throughout California representing high to low PEV sales and charging infrastructure development. In response to non-PEV owners’ questions, PEV owners gave “account,” i.e., told their stories of buying and driving a PEV which included informal tallies of costs, incentives, and benefits. This storytelling conveyed to non-PEV owners many of the signs of PEVs, i.e., how PEVs, charging infrastructure, and incentives are (to those who know the signs) symbols of transition to electric-drive vehicles. Routinely, but not universally, learning the symbol system of PEVs produced more positive evaluations of PEVs’ symbolic, functional, and affective benefits among the non-PEV owners. The workshops reinforce the results from large sample survey research showing the lack of attention paid to PEVs by most car-owning households and suggest elements of a social narrative to promote a transition to electric-drive vehicles.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Certainly, more people received CVRs and federal tax credits over this time. At the end of June 2014, approximately 67,000 CVRs had been paid to PEV buyers; by the end of June 2017 this had increased to over 203,000. The point here is that this increase did not translate into any greater awareness across the broader population of new-car buyers.
- 2.
Information can also be learned via experience; the feeling (affect) of acceleration may be more effectively conveyed by driving the car than by talking about it.
- 3.
“Out there” in American slang describes something far from normal, day-to-day experience. The Jetsons© was a cartoon television show produced in the US in the 1960s depicting a future in which everyone has flying cars—in addition to other imagined advances.
References
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. (2018). Advanced technology vehicle sales dashboard. Data compiled by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers using information provided by IHS Markit. Data last updated August 23, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2018 from https://autoalliance.org/energy-environment/advanced-technology-vehicle-sales-dashboard/.
Axsen, J., & Kurani, K. S. (2012). Social influence, consumer behavior, and low-carbon energy transitions. Annual Reviews of Environment and Resources, 37, 311–340. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-environ-062111-145049n.
Center for Sustainable Energy. (2019). California Air Resources Board clean vehicle rebate project, rebate statistics. Data last updated April 16, 2019. Retrieved June 7, 2019 from https://cleanvehiclerebate.org/rebate-statistics.
Erlandson, D. A., Harris, E. L., Skipper, B. L., & Allen, S. D. (1993). Doing naturalistic inquiry: A guide to methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Heffner, R. R., Kurani, K. S., & Turrentine, T. S. (2007). Symbolism in California’s early market for hybrid electric vehicles. Transportation Research Part D, 12, 396–413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2007.04.003.
International Energy Agency. (2017, June 8). EV30@30, press release. Beijing, China. https://www.iea.org/media/topics/transport/3030CampaignDocumentFinal.pdf.
International Energy Agency. (2018). Electric vehicles: Tracking clean energy progress. Accessed September 8, 2018. http://www.iea.org/tcep/transport/evs/.
Johnson, A. (1996). It’s good to talk: The focus group and the sociological imagination. The Sociological Review, 44, 517–538. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1996.tb00435.x.
Kurani, K., & Hardman, S. (2018). Automakers and policymakers may be on a path to electric vehicles; consumers aren’t. Greenlight Blog. Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis. https://its.ucdavis.edu/blog-post/automakers-policymakers-on-path-to-electric-vehicles-consumers-are-not/.
Kurani, K. S., Turrentine, T. S., & Heffner, R. R. (2007). Narrative self-identity and societal goals: Automotive fuel economy and global warming policy. In D. Sperling & J. Cannon (Eds.), Driving climate change: Cutting carbon from transportation. Academic Press. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780123694959500142.
Kurani, K. S., Caperello, N., TyreeHageman, J., & Davies, J. (2018) Symbolism, signs, and accounts of electric vehicles in California. Energy Research and Social Science, 46, 345–355. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961830118X.
Noppers, E. H., Keizer, K., Bolderdijk, J. W., & Steg, L. (2014). The adoption of sustainable innovations: Driven by symbolic and environmental motives. Global Environmental Change, 25, 52–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.01.012.
Noppers, E. H., Keizer, K., Bockarjova, M., & Steg, L. (2015). The adoption of sustainable innovations: The role of instrumental, environmental, and symbolic attributes for earlier and later adopters. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 44, 74–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2015.09.002.
Owen, H. (1997). Open space technology: A user’s guide (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Berrett-Kooehler Publishers.
Sachs, W. (1983). Are energy-intensive life-images fading? The cultural meaning of the automobile in transitions. Journal of Economic Psychology, 3, 347–365.
Steg, L. (2005). Car use: Lust and must. Instrumental, symbolic and affective motives for car use. Transportation Research Part A, 39, 147–162.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kurani, K. (2020). What Conversations Between PEV Owners and Owners of Non-PEVs in California Tell Us About Sustaining a Transition. In: Contestabile, M., Tal, G., Turrentine, T. (eds) Who’s Driving Electric Cars. Lecture Notes in Mobility. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38382-4_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38382-4_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-38381-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-38382-4
eBook Packages: EnergyEnergy (R0)