Low carbon mobility: Opportunities and challenges for local economic development

Abstract

The automotive industry continues to face tremendous competitive pressures, an issue brought into sharp focus since the onset of a global economic downturn in 2008. Moreover, the sector finds itself on the cusp of a transformative shift, with commentators and politicians alike suggesting that its only future is one which embraces emergent low carbon technologies (see, for example, HM Government, 2009). This provides both challenges and opportunities with governments globally encouraging the manufacture and adoption of a range of alternatively fuelled vehicles and their supporting infrastructure. This is articulated through support both for manufacturers, to encourage investment in the design and production of electric, hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles and their components, and for public authorities and energy providers to install electric charging points and hydrogen fuel stations. At the same time, incentives to encourage consumer uptake of new vehicle technologies are being used as a demand-side stimulus. The driving forces behind these policies include concerns over CO2 emissions and their contribution to climate change, and the local economic impact of continued migration of volume car production away from established internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle markets. The effects of these processes could offer significant new economic development opportunities for regions with a strong tradition of automotive manufacturing, especially for automotive supply-chains. Other regions may benefit economically from the development of integrated low carbon infrastructure facilitating the establishment of sustainable transport systems. Such initiatives are being widely encouraged through the confluence of various local, regional, national and supra-national policy measures and instruments. At the same time, a shift to low carbon mobility presents societal challenges. Policy makers need to ensure that the transformative shift already underway does not exclude sections of society less able to afford new technologies entering the market, particularly in the short to medium term when their cost