Valuing and judging investments in electric vehicle chargepoints “in the wild”

Dolmor, Elizabeth and Mason, Katy and Boyaci, Burak and Rhodes-Leader, Luke (2024) Valuing and judging investments in electric vehicle chargepoints “in the wild”. Masters thesis, Lancaster University.

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Abstract

The impact of Climate Change has accelerated technological advancements in vehicles in an effort to reduce effects. One such technology, is the introduction of alternative modes of transport, namely in the shape of the Electric Vehicle. A chargepoint is a new piece of technology, needed to support the transition to EVs. There are three actors vital to chargepoint installation: service providers, service hosts, and service users. These three actors will hold different valuation and judgement systems, which will influence the success of a chargepoint. This project has investigated the valuation and evaluation of chargepoints, namely its value, as a service, as a concept, and as an opportunity to fulfil a green agenda. These perspectives are particularly influenced by context, and this project has been in partnership with a service provider, Charge My Street, a community benefit society installing chargepoints in underserved locations in Cumbria. Understanding the different valuation and judgement systems at play between the three actors is key to understanding the value produced at chargepoints, both physically and conceptually. Defining value is difficult, as it often relates to contemporary capitalism, this research has extended the scope for value beyond the capitalistic perspective of ‘worth’. The project has identified the different decision tools used by service hosts to install a chargepoint, specifically the collision of values including social, environmental, and economic. Tools such as visualisations of value, ZapMap, and community creation, could improve the success of chargepoint installation for service providers such as Charge My Street. Using an autoethnographic perspective, interviews, and twelve months immersed in the role as a service provider, has informed on the different valuation systems produced by the actors, the impactful calculative agencies which inform on decision processes, and how those involved perceive the chargepoint and its value.