Policy mechanisms to accelerate electric vehicle adoption: A qualitative review from the Nordic region

Abstract

Electric vehicles are an important instrument to decarbonize transportation, offering a range of cobenefits such as reductions in local pollution, noise emissions, and oil dependency. Unfortunately, price, range, infrastructure and technological uncertainty are only some of the barriers to a faster adoption of these vehicles. To overcome these barriers, there is a broad call for public support and a growing body of primarily survey and choice experiment studies to show which policy mechanisms are effective, with mixed outcomes. In response, this paper offers a qualitative comparative analysis that draws on 227 semi-structured interviews with 257 transportation and electricity experts from 201 institutions across 17 cities within the Nordic region to discuss the reasoning and arguments behind EV incentives and policy mechanisms. A frequency analysis of the most coded responses favoured cost reduction mechanisms, in particular taxation exemptions; infrastructure support for public and apartment charging; the importance of consumer awareness, especially information campaigns; certain other specific policy measures like procurement programs and environmental zones; and more general policy principles. More in-depth, our analysis shows the debates around these mechanisms and how the pros and cons of these mechanisms differ per country, per transport segment, per phase of transition or market share, even per city. In short, this paper calls for strong stable national targets and price incentives combined with local flexibility to implement secondary benefits and more attention to awareness campaigns to advance the implementation of electric vehicles.

How to Achieve a More Resource‐Efficient and Climate‐Neutral Energy System by 2030? Views of Nordic Stakeholders

“…The efficiency gains extend to the network, where EVs can help to direct loads and store energy; for homes, they can function as a reserve power solution. Efficiency gains furthermore extend to city planning as EVs can reduce local air particle emissions and traffic noise (Kester, Noel, Rubens, & Sovacool, ), and hence, enable siting residential buildings closer to main roads.…”

Adoption of electric vehicles: Which factors are really important?

“…With regard to the performance (range and charging time) of an EV, consumers in general are not satisfied (Chen et al, 2020;Kester et al, 2018). However, EVs have the potential to perform better than ICVs, so this advantage can compensate for more unfavorable factors such as limited range, long charging time and high price (Skippon, 2014).…”

Are Existing Battery Electric Vehicles Adoption Studies Able to Inform Policy? A Review for Policymakers

“…The results suggest that EV related public policies are the most powerful incentives for early adoption, while technical deficiencies and costly purchase price remain major barriers to wider EV uptake. However, Kester et al [20] argue that the integration of powerful and stable national targets, purchase subsidies, and local policy measures (zone access restriction), public procurement, and information campaigns for arousing consumer awareness enable the further promotion of EV penetration in Nordic countries.…”