Escaping lock-in: The case of the electric vehicle

Infrastructures, lock-in, and sustainable urban development: the case of waste incineration in the Göteborg Metropolitan Area

“…What an un-locking process needs to commence is a sequence of events acting as catalyst for concerns and initiatives (Cowan and Hultén, 1996;Unruh and Carrillo-Hermosilla, 2006). Such concerns and initiatives introduce new ideas, values and narratives that challenge the locked-in order.…”

“…Yet, escaping lock-ins is possible. Cowan and Hultén (1996) suggest that just like the process of lockingin can start with a small historical event or a sequence of events, possibilities for unlocking technologies can emerge from any combination of the following: a crisis in the existing technology; regulation; technological breakthrough producing a (real or imagined) cost breakthrough; changes in tastes; niche markets; or scientific results. Taking as an example the defeat of electrical vehicles to gasoline cars in the early years of the 20 th century, they note that a defeated technology can reappear more than a century later when conditions have changed.…”

Energy, the Environment, and Technological Change

“…While the empirical literature is quite thin, some studies have explored the issue of increasing returns and technology lock-in for competing technologies within the energy and environment arenas, including analysis of renewable energy and fossil fuels (Cowan and Kline, 1996), the internal combustion engine and alternatively fueled vehicles (Cowan and Hulten, 1996), pesticides and integrated pest management (Cowan and Gunby, 1996), technologies for electricity generation (Islas, 1997), nuclear power reactor designs (Cowan, 1990), and the transition from hydrocarbon-based fuels (Kemp, 1997).…”

Experts, theories, and electric mobility transitions: Toward an integrated conceptual framework for the adoption of electric vehicles

“…Cowan and Hulten (1996) trace the formative years of the automobile industry when no technology dominated; a rise to dominance; a Electric Mobility 30 consolidation of power; and newer phases of possible disentrancement and decline due to the rise of EVs. Kirsch (2000) suggests that history exerts a "burden" that EVs must overcome, and a degree of contingency in mobility pathways as well: there would have been a time when even dominant regimes today were nascent and emerging.…”

“…This hybridity between driver and machine becomes taken for granted and "locked in" (Cowan and Hulten 1996), leading to "obduracy" (Dijk 2011). John Urry (interview with author, 2016) reminds us that such path dependence is often unintended and can begin from practices at the micro scale:…”