Rural views on the transition from fossil-fuelled cars to electric cars

Abstract: This study highlights perspectives considering the transition from fossil-fueled cars to electric cars in the Swedish passenger car fleet. The perspectives origins from semi-structured interviews with six rural residents in Värmland, Sweden, and from examined editorials, news reporting and debate articles in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN). The theoretical approaches of this case study are sociotechnical imaginaries, ontological security, identity, and a reinterpreted version of “the agrarian question” which I refer to as “the rural question”. Using these theoretical approaches, I have found that fossil-fueled vehicles in rural areas have a dimension of certain social identities and role identities that are dependent on the internal-combustion engine. I also argue that the need for ontological security among car drivers are one reason to why rural citizens have not fully committed to the imaginary of an electrified future of the passenger car fleet. Sociotechnical imaginaries appear in both DN and the interviews, where journalists in DN have a particularly optimistic imaginary of an electrified future, while the participants show a wider range of imaginaries. I have also interpreted a worry among journalist of being associated with right-wing movements like the fuel uprising when writing about possible solutions for rural areas in terms of expensive fuels. I conclude the thesis by stating that rural areas demand a more wide range of technological solutions than urban areas.