Can innovative business models overcome resistance to electric vehicles? Better Place and battery electric cars in Denmark

Thomas Budde Christensen, Peter Wells and Liana Cipcigan

Energy Policy, 2012, vol. 48, issue C, 498-505

Abstract: This paper explores the geographical and policy context for an emergent business model from Better Place to deliver battery electric car mobility in Denmark. It argues that the combination of radically different technologies and a highly complex multi-agency operating environment theoretically provide the conditions and requirements for such an emergent business model. While focused on battery electric cars, renewable energy generation and smart grids, the paper has wider applicability to an understanding of the interplay between place, innovation and sustainability which suggests that diverse solutions are likely to be the characteristic solution rather than ubiquity and standardization. The paper argues, however, that the innovative business model, the deployment of electric vehicles, and the use of renewable energy systems, in this case largely based on wind power, while mutually supportive and contributing to wider policy aims with respect to the reduction of carbon emissions, may still fail in the face of entrenched practices. At the theoretical level it is concluded that theorization of business models needs a broader perspective beyond the typical ‘value creation, value capture’ rubric to better understand the wider role such models have in meeting societal goals, and to understand the structural impediments to organizational and technical innovation.

Keywords: Business models; Electric cars; Better Place (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (53)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421512004673
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:enepol:v:48:y:2012:i:c:p:498-505

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2012.05.054

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().