Paper short abstract:

The paper focus on transitions to sustainable transport and the role of electric vehicles (EV). Based on studies of EV use in Norway we argue that EVs constitute different materialities with different user groups and different sustainable trajectories.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focus on the role of materials for social practices and sustainability, with a specific emphasis on transitions to sustainable transport. In the paper we analyse the role of the electric car in sustainable transitions. In one way electric cars may be seen as attempts of "skilling" the material rather than the social. Built on envisaged material futures based on present needs and solutions sustainable transport ambitions are delegated to electric cars rather than to people with transportation needs and desires, hence reproducing social practices of transportation with a potential sustainable material twist. On the other hand electric cars may be seen as material interventions co-constructing temporalities of new and sustainable practices.

Through qualitative studies of electric car users and their everyday life practices in Norway from 2010-2015 - a period characterised by vast increase in both sustainable transition policies and private ownership of electric cars in Norwegian households - we demonstrate the way that the material features of the electric car has developed during the last years also shape users of electric mobility as well as different uses and practises. We find that electric cars constitute different forms of materiality with different user groups and with different trajectories related to sustainable transitions. Different cars seem to afford different users, and as pointed out by earlier research, different user roles such as user-citizens and user-consumers who may facilitate transitions and act in different ways in the process of shaping new routines and of system change.