The Impact of the Popularization of Clean Energy Vehicles on Employment

The introduction of clean energy vehicles (CEVs) is expected to improve environmental efficiency in the transportation sector. However, the popularization of each CEV type has different impacts on economic, social, and environmental aspects across life cycle, because CEVs have a different parts structure from that of gasoline vehicles (GVs). Because CEVs affect many aspects of the social system, it is necessary to analyze CEVs in the context of product-service systems (PSS), which bring together products (CEVs) and service (public service), rather than focusing on individual products. Also, the popularization of CEVs will affect employment especially, as CEVs generate demand in different industries compared with GVs. There are labor- and capital-intensive industries, and the number of jobs will vary depending on the supply chain characteristics of each CEV. However, most existing studies do not consider the impacts on employment when CEVs are popularized in a society. Therefore, by quantitatively assessing the social sustainability of PSS that are centered on CEVs and public service, in this study, we evaluate and analyze the ripple effects on employment under some scenarios. Our simulation results show that compared with 2010, the employment effects of the popularization of CEVs in 2030 are expected to decrease by about 37,000 people in Japan.