Innovation: Electric Vehicles - Consumer Transport Industry

Electric Vehicles: Consumer Transport Industry
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Electric Vehicles: Consumer Transport Industry
1 What is the technological innovation you have selected, and how is it used in this industry? Provide a historical overview of the innovation and describe how it emerged.
Clarification and Introduction of the Innovation: Electric Vehicles
Electric vehicles (EVs) are among the latest innovations addressing environmental concerns. EVs refer to vehicles that use electricity from an external power source to operate (Moon, Park, Jeong, & Lee, 2018). The electricity is stored in rechargeable batteries, and these batteries power the electric motor, allowing the vehicle to move. However, some EV types do not have rechargeable batteries and cannot be recharged from an external source. The various types of EVs include plug-in-hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), battery electric vehicles (BEVs), fully electric vehicles (EVs), and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) (Sun et al., 2020).
EVs Usage/Application in the Consumer Transport Industry
EVs have gained popularity within the consumer transport industry in recent years. According to a report by Ernest and Young, about 52% of consumers who intend to buy a car in the next two years will choose an EV (Miller et al., 2022). EVs are used in the consumer transport industry to facilitate mobility. Public policies have highly incentivized personal use and privately-owned EVs across many regions (World Economic Forum (WEF), 2018). These incentives include free parking, tax rebates, and financial incentives to encourage the use of EVs to facilitate personal/private mobility. According to Jaiswal et al. (2021), policymakers and environmental experts advocate for the use of EVs for personal transportation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote sustainable transport. EVs have become popular among consumers interested in sustainable mobility.
Historical Overview of EVs
Despite gaining popularity in recent years, EV technology is not a new concept. According to Sun et al. (2020), EVs have been around for over 100 years. The history of EVs can be traced back to the 1800s when batteries and electric motors were introduced. This demonstrates new applications of existing technology, i.e., batteries and the electric motor. As such, EVs can be considered an emerging technology due to this radical novelty. By the 1900s, EVs were quite popular for personal transport. Specifically, they were most preferred by urban women because they were easy to drive and lacked the smelly pollutant emitted by gasoline-powered cars (U.S Department of Energy, 2014). EVs are currently used to facilitate mobility and are beyond the conception stage. In addition, EV technology has persisted over time, despite the disruption caused by the mass production of gasoline-powered vehicles (Sun et al., 2020). Also, EVs result from the convergence of electronic and gasoline-powered vehicle technologies (Feng et al., 2020). This makes it an emerging technology due to this coherence.
In the early 1900s, about a third of all vehicles were electric (U.S Department of Energy, 2014). Although this number declined after the mass ...