Hairpins and blindspots: Exploring the potential challenges of electric vehicle tourism

Abstract

Electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining in popularity in NZ and worldwide. Extensive electrification of vehicle fleets is increasingly expected and is a common part of the national response to climate change and of strategies for a low carbon future. Social science research considering the impacts of a transition to EVs has been limited and has largely focused on initial concerns such as adoption and early range anxiety. There are, however, deeper and longer term challenges associated with vehicle electrification. Tourism provides a particularly fascinating case study for exploring the potential impacts of EVs. Visitor travel is characterised by highly differentiated peaks and troughs in travel demand that could pose infrastructural challenges, by travellers making non-routine, unfamiliar journeys and stepping outside of habitual practices, and by inequity in participation that may be compounded by unequal EV access. This presentation considers how well prepared we are to meet longer term challenges associated with vehicle electrification. It does this by examining some of the less commonly discussed impacts of EV adoption in the tourism sector and by exploring how to facilitate an effective transition.