Transition pathways of commercial-urban fleet electrification in the UK

Road transport accounts for 90% of UK transport emissions; by 2027 this is targeted to be reduced by 50% (OLEV, 2011). Electric vehicles offer a substantial opportunity to reduce road emissions, particularly to decarbonise the fleet market due to the sheer number of new registrations for business applications. However the diffusion of electric vehicles requires a transition across a large spectrum of societal and economic dimensions. The relationship between transition pathways and technological lock-in in the transport sector is underresearched, particularly in the field of e-mobility. This paper explores the pathway for electric vehicles, identifying the development blocks and technological lock-in of existing vehicle types, in order to understand the opportunities for technology diffusion within commercial fleet applications. This study takes a small sample of cases to achieve an in depth exploration of the motivations and barriers to this technological change. Three UK commercial-urban fleets in differing sectors are examined to understand their individual contexts and the level of correlation with the challenges experienced by the fleet market as whole, and how these have or have not been overcome. The multi-level perspective was used to determine the dynamics of change for fleets towards electric vehicles, and the roles of different stakeholder types were explored through the ‘action space’ of government, civil society and market logics. It is evident from the cases that an ‘innovator logic’ is competing to unlock EVs through technology innovation that extends beyond the transitional role of hybrids