Globally, the transportation system is transforming from a fossil-based to an electrification system. Some countries are leading in the transformation process. Some countries are rapidly catching up to become market leaders in developing and introducing new techniques and equipment that support the transformation process in their countries. In contrast, others are still relying on their old fossil-based system or could not have enough understanding of how to deal with this complex transformation of the transportation system.

The electrification of the transportation system is not an isolated system that can be handled as a single technological element. It is a group of multiple technologies, political, societal, and economic sub-systems each of these sub-systems is embedded in each other, forming the whole system. Therefore, it is important to see and manage the system from a holistic perspective to transform the transportation electrification system efficiently. We have selected eight countries from three different continents – Asia (China, India), Australia, which is a country and continent, and Europe (Germany, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, and the UK) to explore the transformational process of transportation electrification based on each countries’ conditions. We have chosen these continents as they are diversified in adopting transportation electrification system solutions.

Our main conclusions are that the political processes and political decisiveness are the most important, followed by the societal and economic, with technology as the fourth. The other three are difficult to obtain without dedicated and determined political decision-makers. Political decision-makers need to use economic means to support the transformation in society and industry to balance the economic disadvantage of electric systems until they pass the cost disadvantage turning point. Technology is no longer a significant barrier as it was about 20 years ago. Now, technology is available, although it can be improved. The important part is to understand how to utilize the existing technology efficiently to transform the old fossil-based transportation system into new electrification of the transportation system. Without clear and strong political support, the industry cannot be expected to initiate, finance, take risks, and take the lead in this global societal transformation.

Our analysis shows that China is being positioned as the leading country in the world in the electrification of the transportation system because of the strong technological advancements, control of the entire value chain, strong government decisiveness, and execution power in developing and implementing favorable electric vehicle (EV) policies, the willingness of the public sector to take the lead and citizens support to adopt clean technology. Norway has rapidly become one of the newcomers with large numbers of registered electric vehicles according to its population size within a few years, despite lacking manufacturing electric vehicles (EVs) and equipment for transportation electrification. Germany is leading in the technological sector of transportation electrification within Europe with its prestigious top-selling electric vehicle brands in Germany, such as Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Smart, and Audi, and establishing a battery Gigafactory with an annual potential production capacity of 60 GWh. However, Germany is still lagging behind from the societal perspective of not having enough sales of electric vehicles compared to gasoline-based vehicles. Sweden is a rapidly growing country in the electrification of transport, with three vehicle manufacturers introducing EVs in 2021 and developing electric roads system for more than ten years. Sweden is also working on establishing a new 50 GWh battery manufacturing plant in Gothenburg, Sweden. The UK is also catching up with its other European countries in transforming the transportation system with its strong government support. The British government has kept transportation electrification on its national agenda and considering building a Gigafactory to obtain a position as a future battery leader. However, the UK's adoption rate of electric vehicles is still slow compared to fossil-based vehicles. India, Australia, and Slovenia are far behind in the process of transportation transformation than China, Norway, Germany, Sweden, and the UK. One of the common reasons in all these countries is their governments' baby steps even though they have high ambitions. Their governments require a revolutionized and systems approach to enable remarkable change in the transformation process.