“I'm Saving Fuel to Buy More Guns”: The Electric Vehicle as Cultural Object and Climate Policy Solution1

Abstract

This article examines electric vehicles (EVs) as cultural objects and assesses how they are mobilized as a solution to the climate crisis. Taking a material approach to cultural objects reveals how hybrids and EVs are sites of contested meaning‐making at the intersection of material affordances and conventional symbolic associations. This approach illuminates (1) how the material qualities of EVs destabilize taken‐for‐granted meanings grounded in polarized political positions, (2) how the process of design and changes in the social world bring new meanings to the material capacities of EVs, leading to reclassifications of EVs even by conservative Americans, (3) how attempts to persuade consumers to buy EVs circumvent the work of persuading people to adopt a pro‐environment position, and (4) how the material infrastructural ecosystem can (and cannot) scaffold these new meanings. Ultimately, this article suggests that people can be moved to act in ways that align with a decarbonizing agenda without having to be convinced to adopt new positions on global warming. We examine the interplay of the material and symbolic dimensions of EVs to understand both the solutions and challenges of our environmental crisis and social problems generally.