Cars and kids: Childhood perceptions of electric vehicles and sustainable transport in Denmark and the Netherlands

Benjamin K. Sovacool, Johannes Kester and Vimke Heida

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2019, vol. 144, issue C, 182-192

Abstract: What preferences, perceptions, and expectations do children have about current (and future) electric vehicles and conventional cars? The values, worldviews, and patterns of energy (and mobility) consumption that adults come to hold, and perform, become molded and perhaps cemented in childhood. However, given the particular sensitivities in conducting social science research involving children, recent comparative examinations of the perceptions and preferences of kids and cars remains rare. In this article, we offer the first international assessment of how 587 surveyed schoolchildren between 9 and 13 years of age across 15 schools in rural to intermediate regions in Denmark and the Netherlands think about electric mobility, and in examining their perceptions, automobility and transport more broadly. In general, we find that the children surveyed rank the environmental impact of cars just below personal safety and we can conclude that they are aware of innovations such as electric vehicles and their main benefits. Most important, children overwhelmingly seem to agree on the future direction of car-based transport but one with cars that are safer, more energy efficient and alternatively fueled.

Keywords: Sustainable mobility; Automobiles; Automobility; Environmental perceptions; Values; Attitudes; electric vehicles; electric mobility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162518301847
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:144:y:2019:i:c:p:182-192

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2019.04.006

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().