Electric vehicles are seen as green technology par excellence and therefore as the symbol of a green future.
But: Electric vehicles represent a number of political-economic, ecological-social challenges.
For example, as John Szabó explains in his readable text:
The production of electric vehicles is less labor intensive and carries the risk that many people will become unemployed, especially in combination with the ongoing process of automation.
This danger is particularly great in Central and Eastern Europe.
Because the region will, according to Szabó:
be severely affected by the switch from internal combustion engine drives to electric vehicles, since the region is an “assembly hall” for western car companies.
In previous piqs, I have often pointed out the environmental problems that are being ignored in the electric vehicle hype.
John Szabó, who incidentally conducts his research as part of the “Just Transition in the European Car Industry” project, now provides important background knowledge about another aspect that is systematically ignored in the electric vehicle hype: the political economy behind it.
Because even if the common good is a top priority in the electric vehicle hype, there are beneficiaries and numerous losers.
How big the price is can only really be assessed if we take into account that Central and Eastern Europe has been exposed to massive structural precarization since 1989 at the latest and the neoliberal shock therapies administered since then – not least for the function as an “assembly hall ” for Western companies to be able to fulfill in the first place.
Now the West once again wants to initiate the next stage of capitalism’s development at the expense of this (and other) region(s).
Do we really still want to call this “sustainable”?