A field test and its displacements. Accounting for an experimental mode of industrial innovation
Résumé
In June 2012, the French car company Renault turned Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, a
town on the outskirts of Paris, into a test and demonstration laboratory. The company
introduced a fleet of 50 electric cars as part of a car-sharing system without
fixed stations called Twizy Way. This scheme was a component of the manufacturer’s
development strategy for the electric car market. This paper analyses this initiative
in order to account for an experimental mode of industrial innovation. Characterised
by the use of sociotechnical instruments in order to explore social and technical
uncertainties and produce public demonstrations, this experimental mode is based on
various kinds of experiments. Building on Science and Technology Studies and
Actor Network Theory, this paper discusses two of them, which are in the same time
two propositions for the organisation of codesign: a planned field test designed by
Renault; and the collection of inquiries that resulted from the extension of the
number of experimenters. These descriptions point to the analytical interest of the
study of experimental trajectories in public and private interventions related to
industrial projects, particularly in situations where the scope of the involved actors
is not pre-given.