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Locked Into the Car: How a Vision of Unfettered Transport Freedom

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Locked Into the Car: How a Vision of Unfettered Transport Freedom This report can be found at www.acola.org.au © Australian Council of Learned Academies Locked into the car: How a vision of unfettered transport freedom transformed personal mobility and reshaped the world Michelle Nic Raghnaill Working Paper 25/08/2014 This working paper contributes to Securing Australia’s Future (SAF) Project 05. This report can be found at www.acola.org.au © Australian Council of Learned Academies Table of Contents Locked into the car: How a vision of unfettered transport freedom transformed personal mobility and reshaped the world .......................................................................................................................... 3 Overview ................................................................................................................................................. 3 Adopting the car: the socio-technical complex of automobile adoption and innovation ...................... 4 Economic and management levers of technological innovation and adoption during the formative years of the automobile industry ............................................................................................................ 4 Development of personal transport technologies in Australia............................................................... 5 Attitudes, marketing and automobile adoption ..................................................................................... 7 Australian adaptability ........................................................................................................................ 8 Legacy of the car industry ................................................................................................................. 10 Society’s tango with technology – consequences of adopting automobile technology en masse ...................................................................................................................................................... 10 Locking in the internal combustion engine ....................................................................................... 12 How mass adoption of the automobile affected the innovation process: the interplay between regulation, motivation, innovation and uptake ................................................................................ 13 Government leverage of technology adoption and public behaviour – effects of promoting fuel efficiency technology, technological classification and measurement outcomes ........................... 15 The interplay between technology classification, regulation and societal effects ........................... 17 Societal effects of promoting traffic mortality issues ....................................................................... 17 What is a socially responsible choice for future personal automobile technology? ........................ 18 What are the overall effects of the automobile industry on society - lifecycle analysis of vehicle engines .............................................................................................................................................. 18 What are the alternatives to the internal combustion engine? ....................................................... 20 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................................... 22 The complexity of technology prediction ......................................................................................... 22 Origins of technology ........................................................................................................................ 22 Factors of technology adoption ........................................................................................................ 24 Perception of technology/societal attitudes ................................................................................ 24 Technology and regulation ............................................................................................................... 24 Government policy assessment of technological uncertainty and risk ........................................ 24 Regulating technology and the technology of regulation ............................................................ 25 Technology evaluation ...................................................................................................................... 25 What has the mass adoption of the car cost society? .................................................................. 25 1 This report can be found at www.acola.org.au © Australian Council of Learned Academies References ........................................................................................................................................ 26 2 This report can be found at www.acola.org.au © Australian Council of Learned Academies Locked into the car: How a vision of unfettered transport freedom transformed personal mobility and reshaped the world Michelle Nic Raghnaill, 25/08/2014 This paper looks at what the car means to Australians, and how the mass adoption of the car has come about over the last century. More widely, it also considers whether contemporary governments, developers and users had the ability to anticipate the future costs, benefits and mass- production of the personal automobile. Did individuals or governments have the ability to decide the course of adoption or were they overtaken by events? This is an important consideration for theTechnologies for Austrlaia’s Future Project, particularly in relation to the impact of government and industry interventions in the prediction, meaning, adoption and diffusion of particular technologies. Key words: Incremental technological change, meaning, prediction, scale, composability, affordability, cost, status, vested interest, business model, infrastructure, technological lock-in, boundaries/classification, well-being, lifecycle analysis Overview The internal combustion engine is a defining technology of the 20th century, helping to shape our security, cultural, democratic, social and economic systems, global environments, mass transport and infrastructure systems, and urban landscapes. Incremental advances in technologies and processes as well as regulatory and behavioural changes on a large scale led to the formation of the automobile industry at the beginning of the 20th century. A business model focused on composability (the interoperability of components), mass production, affordability and highly effective marketing (mapping societal values onto a technology) underpinned the success and evolution of the internal combustion engine industry and differentiated it from electric and steam engine manufacturers. Social norms moulded and were moulded by the personal automobile industry, leading to intended and unintended consequences such as increased freedom, rural lifestyles, congestion, accidents, ‘cruising’, sedentary lifestyles, increased pace of life and land use for vehicle infrastructure. Technological classification greatly impacts measurement outcomes. Almost one-third of new cars bought in Australia in 2013 were sport utility vehicles (SUVs). Small car fuel efficiency increases per year but this estimate does not include SUV data, therefore the actual personal automobile fuel efficiency average for Australia is skewed. Mass adoption and development of a supporting infrastructure led to technological lock-in (roads, car parks, repair facilities, refuelling stations, fuel distribution etc.). Problems of our security, cultural, democratic, social and economic systems which come from this technological lock-in include congestion, air pollution and human and environmental damage. Lifecycle assessment evaluates the costs and beneifts of the manufacture, use and disposal of new and emerging technology . Analysing energy use and emissions this way shows that the overall damage costing of hybrid electric vehicles is on a par with that of conventional gasoline vehicles, although the analysis crucially depends on what is costed (i.e. lifecycle, well-to-tank, ‘in use only’ analysis etc.) and how (underlying assumptions and motivations). Various events might overcome technological lock-in– a crisis in the existing technology (such as lack of fuel), regulation (such as an emissions tax), technological breakthrough producing a real or imagined cost reduction, new component technologies, new technology from a different discipline adopted into the automobile industry, changes in taste (e.g. environmentally friendly), 3 This report can be found at www.acola.org.au © Australian Council of Learned Academies niche markets (growth of high cost emerging technology) and scientific results (improved measurement of external effects of the industry). Adopting the car: the socio-technical complex of automobile adoption and innovation The car is an integral part of modern Western societies. In a sense it can be viewed as a technological object, but the true meanings of the personal automobile include its functions as status symbol, a mode of personal transport, a private place, a hobby, a lifelong passion, and a livelihood. A century of the growth of a relationship between humans and automobiles has led to pervasive and varied individual uses, involving attitudes towards it, economic impacts, environmental impacts, and rules and regulations. In general: some cars are just appliances to get from point A to B. Other cars however, are magical. I can’t tell you what makes the
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