Changing oil: self-driving vehicles and the Norwegian state

The paper opens with vignettes from Northern Norway, including a 2018 truck platooning demonstration on the E8 and 2019 remarks by Prime Minister Erna Solberg predicting autonomous, tightly interwoven truck convoys as future freight solutions. These illustrate rising expectations that self-driving vehicles will deliver safety, emissions reductions, and transport efficiency, while acknowledging significant uncertainty and the value-laden choice of transport futures. The study investigates how self-driving vehicles are positioned within Norwegian society and policy using the lens of sociotechnical imaginaries. It asks: (1) What future is envisioned in Norwegian policy and legislation pertaining to self-driving vehicles? (2) How is the envisioned future operationalized and/or altered by actors working in transport automation? (3) How does this future relate to Norwegian policy and society more broadly? The article argues that choices around self-driving vehicles shape national priorities and potential societal organization, warranting close analysis of their political embedding and practical operationalization.

The paper adopts sociotechnical imaginaries (Jasanoff and Kim, 2009, 2015) as the theoretical framework, defining them as collectively held, institutionally stabilized, and publicly performed visions of desirable futures enabled by science and technology. It outlines the four phases in an imaginary’s life—origin, embedding, resistance, extension—and emphasizes how imaginaries mobilize resources, institutions, and public performances. The literature on innovation policy is reviewed to show how governments increasingly treat technological innovation as shorthand for progress and economic development, often via traveling models (e.g., the MIT model) and generalized support schemes (Pfotenhauer and Jasanoff, 2017a,b). A historical overview situates Norway’s resource-based economy (fisheries, hydropower-intensive industries, petroleum) and its policy evolution: early 20th-century concession acts, periodic attempts to foster high-tech sectors (ICT, consumer electronics, EV industry), and a 1980s shift from direct sectoral support to generalized R&D-centered innovation policies (Sørensen, 2013, 2016; Fagerberg et al., 2009a). The ‘green shift’ is introduced as a Norwegian sociotechnical imaginary of transitioning from petroleum to sustainable industries, institutionalized through initiatives like Nysnø, Enova, Innovasjon Norge’s environmental technology scheme, and The Explorer platform, and rooted in traditions from Our Common Future and deep ecology. This background frames how AVs are taken up as part of broader national narratives and policy logics.

The study uses a dual qualitative approach combining document analysis and empirical investigation of the NPRA’s Borealis project.

• Document analysis: An initial scan of 42 items (White Papers, commissioned reports, legislation, tender documents) referencing self-driving vehicles narrowed to seven key documents that specify policy, constitute the knowledge base, or operationalize policies (e.g., Act Relating to Testing of Self-Driving Vehicles (2017); National Transport Plan 2018–2029; Smartere transport in Norge; Pilot-T; Technology for sustainable freedom of movement and mobility; Transport21; and the Borealis R&D call). Documents were iteratively read for benefits/challenges, broader political context, and envisioned societal impacts beyond transport.
• Interviews: Eight in-depth interviews (2019) related to Borealis—four NPRA employees (project leaders/close collaborators), three employees from NPRA partner companies, and one regional politician. Interviews followed a semi-structured guide covering project provenance, links to AV policies/visions, regional benefits, and significance of Arctic testing. All were audio-recorded, professionally transcribed, pseudonymized, and translated by the author.
• Analysis: Open coding (Charmaz, 2006) of transcripts, iteratively focusing on visions of technological futures and testing practices, prompted re-examination of the seven policy/commissioned documents to situate project-level activities within national policy dynamics.
• Observations: Participant observation during a March 2019 field visit to the E8 Borealis test site (first testing phase), including interactions in a roadside control center, troubleshooting, and attendance at a partners’ project meeting to observe dynamics and challenges.
• Event study: Attendance at the April 2019 ITS Arena seminar (Oslo), a field-configuring event co-organized by NPRA and ITS Norge, where NPRA presented ITS challenges and priorities, indicating institutional efforts to configure the AV/ITS field in Norway. Data availability is restricted due to privacy agreements; anonymized Norwegian-language materials available upon request from the author.

• Norwegian policy and legislation frame AVs in general, transnational terms with a strong economic emphasis rather than distinctively Norwegian societal needs. The National Transport Plan (NTP 2018–2029) aligns AV benefits (safety, value creation, low emissions) with its vision but emphasizes trials/pilots; the 2017 Act authorizes public-road testing. Funding instruments include NOK 100 million for Smartere transport (2017) and NOK 60 million for Pilot-T (2019). Early tests mainly involved low-speed shuttle buses (12–20 km/h).
• Policy roles: The NTP delineates that commercial firms develop technology while authorities adapt legislation and ensure safety. Testing regimes channel firms’ learning via mandated final reports to public authorities, potentially shaping institutional understandings of AVs.
• Borealis operationalization: NPRA’s Region North created a 40 km E8 test corridor (Skibotn–Finnish border), inspired by Finland’s 10 km Aurora site, leveraging a NOK 30 million surplus and internal technical capacity. NPRA selected nine predominantly Norwegian partners, co-funding 50% of costs and leaving commercialization rights to companies, aiming to stimulate domestic industry.
• Technology focus: Despite an initial truck platooning demo, substantial automation was not mature; the demonstration functioned performatively to mobilize support. The core testing portfolio focused on intelligent digital infrastructures (V2V/V2I/I2I comms, LIDAR on poles, magnetic parking sensors repurposed for vehicle detection, digital signs, DAS fiber-optic sensing—including low/high-cost A/B configurations—and provision of power and broadband). Emphasis was on making the road predictable and manageable (safety, maintenance, incident response), matching NTP aims.
• Arctic testing value: The High North provides “corner case” conditions (freezing temps, snow, difficult topography, time-critical fish logistics). NPRA framed this as contributing to EU-wide standardization and a collaborative Nordic division of labor (complementing Finland’s Aurora) rather than a race narrative. The question “how many days of snow can the European economy handle?” underscores European relevance.
• Norwegian use-cases and dual orientation: Borealis linked AV-related infrastructures to (1) immediate improvements in E8 operations and fish logistics (a resource-based export sector), and (2) potential roles in European standardization and domestic high-tech industry development. This dual orientation bridges Norway’s historical resource-based innovation model with aspirations for a knowledge-intensive sector.
• Subcontracted politics: With general, economically framed national policies, NPRA’s in-house expertise and leadership effectively steered AV development toward infrastructure-centric solutions, configuring the field via project selection and events (ITS Arena). Decision-making thus shifted toward administrative/professional arenas rather than overt political deliberation.
• Imaginaries: AVs in Norway appear initially as an extension of the established ‘green shift’ imaginary (innovation-led, post-petroleum prosperity). Borealis may represent the origin of a distinctively Norwegian AV imaginary embedded in specific geography, economy (fisheries), European responsibilities (standardization), and professional judgments, suggesting non-linear, nested imaginary development where embedding precedes articulation.

The study shows that Norwegian AV policy rhetoric largely mirrors common Western European claims (safety, efficiency, emissions) and foregrounds economic opportunity, offering little articulation of uniquely Norwegian societal applications. This addresses the first research question by revealing a generic, economically oriented imaginary embedded via legislation and funding instruments. Operationalization through Borealis answers the second question: NPRA translated generic policy into context-specific testing emphasizing intelligent infrastructures under Arctic conditions, aligned with fish logistics and European standardization. Rather than vehicle autonomy per se, NPRA prioritized robust digital road infrastructures, A/B-tested technologies, and data/communications capabilities—areas where Norwegian competencies could be leveraged. Regarding the third question, the findings link AVs to broader Norwegian political economy and the green shift. Borealis exemplifies a hybrid innovation mode that both modernizes a resource-based sector and seeds possibilities for a domestic high-tech industry. It also illustrates ‘subcontracted politics,’ where professional agencies configure technological trajectories and field norms in the absence of detailed political guidance. Conceptually, the case refines sociotechnical imaginaries by showing nested, non-linear development: an emergent AV imaginary originates and embeds through a project instantiated under the umbrella of the pre-existing green shift imaginary.

The paper argues that Norway’s engagement with self-driving vehicles is best understood within its resource-based economic history and the future-oriented green shift imaginary. National policy and legislation institutionalize AVs in general terms emphasizing economic growth and innovation, while NPRA’s Borealis project concretizes these aims in a Norwegian context—supporting the fisheries value chain, advancing EU-relevant standardization, and potentially fostering a domestic high-tech sector. Borealis thus exhibits a dual orientation that bridges traditional resource-based innovation and knowledge-intensive industry development. Conceptually, the study proposes that imaginaries can be nested and non-linear: the green shift imaginary’s extension into AVs created institutional embedding before a distinct AV imaginary was articulated through Borealis. If this emergent AV imaginary stabilizes, it would already be institutionally embedded, illustrating how state-making and innovation remain intertwined in reconfigured forms. Future research could track the durability and diffusion of this AV imaginary, examine resistance or alternative imaginaries (e.g., rail investments vs. autonomous freight), and assess socio-economic outcomes of infrastructure-centric AV deployments beyond pilot contexts.