Imagining and enacting the future of the German energy transition: electric vehicles as grid infrastructure

The electrification of transportation in Germany has failed so far, but the disappointment has given way to more radical visions and new coalitions. Utilities, grid operators, and ICT companies have started to challenge the traditional image of the car. In their future scenarios, transportation, energy, and communication infrastructures must be aligned in order to achieve a sustainable society. This paper explores the co-production and enactment of this technological vision using the analytical framework of sociotechnical imaginaries. First, I describe how the idea of the electric vehicle as energy infrastructure was able to take hold within the German expert community. To understand how this approach might transform the existing mobility and energy practices, I examine two of the first R&D experiments that have enacted this vision in two radically different ways. Both reflect unarticulated assumptions about social life, including implicit cultural notions of self-determination, ownership, living arrangements, privacy, and control.