OPINIONS

Geopolitics and electric vehicles: the rise of climate protectionism

Xabier Gangoiti, Graham Parkhurst

14/02/2025

The electric vehicle (EV) revolution is not just a technological shift; it's a geopolitical earthquake. This article understands automobility as a crucial pillar of contemporary capitalist societies, locking the economy and society into mass car production and use. It analyses the escalating tensions surrounding EV production, focusing on the rise of China as the dominant force in the global EV market, critical mineral supply chains, and battery manufacturing. China's ascendancy presents significant challenges for European automakers striving to compete. Simultaneously, the United States adopted, under the presidency of Joe Biden, increasingly protectionist measures to bolster its domestic…

Thematics : Policies, Theories

CROSSED PERSPECTIVES

Can universities learn to leave behind air travel?

Tamara Ben Ari, Parke Wilde

10/10/2024

At a time when global research is showing that aviation is a carbon-intensive form of transport whose growth absolutely must be stopped, shouldn't universities be the first to set an example? But can researchers, especially the youngest ones, do without these trips for their careers? How can researchers continue to work together and what criteria should govern their behaviour?

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

OPINIONS

Have metropolitan mobility policies been redefined by the Covid pandemic?

Jean Debrie, Juliette Maulat

21/05/2024

The pandemic precipitated a sudden, short-term shift in mobility. The immediate repercussions of the lockdown are widely documented: a substantial decrease in travel, partially supplanted by telecommunications; significant alterations in modal practices (increased walking and cycling, and decreased use of public transport and private vehicles); and a surge in short-distance trips. Throughout the crisis, numerous media outlets speculated about a transition towards a "post-Covid world" characterised by a new mobility paradigm. Examination of people’s behaviours, drawing on national and local statistics available in 2023, reveals a change that is more modest. This change is marked by an…

Thematics : Policies

RESEARCH NOTES

The combined use of bicycles and trains in the Netherlands: a promising mode of transport in a suitable environment

Javier Caletrío

22/03/2024

The combined use of bicycles and trains as part of the same trip is becoming normalised in densely populated urban areas in the Netherlands. This article summarises the main insights of academic literature on the topic with special attention paid to the limits and potential for growth of this bicycle-train system and policy interventions. A key question researchers are asking is: could it be replicated in other regions?

SOUTHERN DIARIES

The paradoxes of Algeria's car system

Aniss Mouad Mezoued

20/02/2024

In recent years, Algeria has seen ongoing debates surrounding vehicle imports, their manufacture, motorisation, the infrastructures supporting them, and the persistent issue of congestion, notably in the capital. There is a constant tension between the aspiration to cater to market demands and the imperative to cultivate local industries so as to reduce a national dependency on imports. This dynamic unfolds within a context where it is a struggle to develop alternatives to automobiles.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

OPINIONS

Old age, dependency and mobility

Yann Castanier

17/01/2024

For the release of the book “Je vous regarde disparaître” [I'm Watching You Disappear], which chronicles fifteen years of my grandparents’ life affected by Alzheimer's disease, the Mobile Lives Forum asked me to talk about the mobility struggles that my family encountered in the face of old age.

Thematics : Lifestyles

LIVRES

Autokorrektur, by Katja Diehl

Franziska Meinherz

16/11/2023

With Autokorrektur (translation: Autocorrect - Mobility for a world worth living in), Katja Diehl’s goal is clear: to allow everyone to live well without being dependent on car ownership. In her view, the current car use is a privilege of a minority, to the detriment of the majority. By drawing on scientific research into why automobiles are the dominant form of mobility, and by focusing on the full range and diversity of individual needs and practices, Katja Diehl has thrust into the German public debate the possibility of alternative, inclusive mobility systems that are centred around people, their needs and their well-being.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies, Theories

RESEARCH NOTES

A sustained fall in post-COVID car use? The case of the Lyon metropolitan area

Stéphanie Vincent, Olivier Klein, Ali El Zein, Pascal Pochet, Adrien Beziat

25/10/2023

After the collapse of automobile traffic during the lockdowns, Covid-19 seemed to have brought the car back into the city, to the detriment of public transport. Through a series of surveys and vehicle countings carried out in the Lyon metropolitan area by Covimob project researchers, changes in automobile practices are revealed to be more complex, while a rethink of car use due to telecommuting is revealed.

Thematics : Lifestyles

RESEARCH NOTES

Tactical cycling urbanism and the health crisis

Laurent Chapelon , Sandrine Depeau, Benoit Feildel, Adrien Lammoglia, Maëlle Lucas, Nathalie ORTAR, Adrien Poisson

25/09/2023

In the spring of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic prompted public authorities to rethink the use of public space, particularly roads, in order to develop means of transport that are both efficient and adapted to the health situation. Fearing that people would desert public transport and shift massively to cars, decision-makers in Europe, North America and South America turned to active modes, such as cycling, which quickly became seen as an adapted means of transport for ensuring minimum social distancing recommendations. Public authorities thereby implemented, with great urgency and varying degrees of success, temporary cycling infrastructures, known as "coronalanes" in France, in order to…

Thematics : Policies

RESEARCH NOTES

Post-covid Mobilities: A Greener World for Tomorrow?

Mobile Lives Forum, Métropolitiques

25/09/2023

Despite ambitious goals to decarbonise mobility, public policies have had little impact on travel-related greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, the response to the Covid-19 epidemic beginning at the start of 2020 radically altered key aspects of how mobility is organised. The Mobile Lives Forum and the Métropolitiques journal are launching a joint investigation into the environmental dimension of mobility in light of these developments. Using a range of formats (articles, videos, photographic portfolios, podcasts), in the coming months we will be showcasing viewpoints from researchers, professionals, civil society associations and policymakers. Our aim is to discuss the ecological transition in…

OPINIONS

‘Revenge Travel’: Aeromobilities and the aviation industry after the Pandemic

Weiqiang Lin

23/06/2023

In 2022, after two years of being grounded due to the Covid-19 pandemic, passengers quickly took to the skies once more in a phenomenon known as “Revenge Travel”. At the same time, the airline industry, weakened by the crisis, has itself embarked on an insatiable quest for growth that ignores current ecological and social issues.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

OPINIONS

Harnessing social tipping dynamics for the ecological transition: the case of the electric car

Javier Caletrío

13/06/2023

Researchers and practitioners are paying growing attention to the possibility of a fast transition in practices and technologies that could accelerate the achievement of emission reductions targets. Although these rapid transitions are usually identifiable in retrospective, experts argue that a transition from combustion engine cars to electric vehicles is imminent. Why do they think a tipping point is about to be reached? What can be done to create the right conditions for the transition to electric vehicles?

Thematics : Policies, Theories