Navigating Transitions: How Electric Vehicle Sharing Is Shaping Sustainable Mobility in Chinese Cities

Urban mobility has a relatively high potential for radical change and plays an important role in building more sustainable cities. This paper investigates the role of business models and local conditions in the transitions towards sustainable urban mobility through a study set in the context of Chinese cities that focuses on the emergence of electric vehicle-sharing services (EVSSs) as a sustainable mobility innovation. Transitions theory and its multi-level perspective has been adopted as a theoretical framework for this research. A case study methodology was employed comprising semi-structured interviews with 26 respondents. These comprised EVSS providers, other mobility service providers, and other stakeholders including local and national governments bodies. It is based in the Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone (YRDEZ), which includes the major cities of Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou that have been at the forefront of EVSS adoption and innovation. The findings highlight the dynamic interplay between business models, regulatory environments, and urban settings, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding the socio-technical shifts necessary for fostering more sustainable urban mobility. The study also demonstrates the importance of a range of research disciplines for understanding the processes of sustainability transitions, whilst also revealing some limitations of transitions theory and the multi-level perspective for analysing and understanding transitions.