I’m just and I’m working on research in circular economy and automotive sector. And I would like to know your point of view. If you accept, I’m going to record our conversation, transcribe it and put the transcription with a pseudonym, not your real name, in a repository of text documents that will be used for the research. If we do this and you change your mind later and no longer want to participate, get in touch with us and we will immediately remove your interview from the repository. I’m leaving you an information sheet with contact information, so if you agree, please tell me your name and that you agree.
I do agree. Alexander Savage. I do agree.
Yeah. Thank you. Alexander. Alexander Alexander. Can you define a circular economy in your own words?
So I’m not much familiar with with the term, but what it would what it would mean for me if I would just like think about it would mean reuse, reuse of the of the resources reusing of the of the items and also having something repurposed later on. If it’s not anymore possible to be reused, in a sense that would be for me. Yeah.
Do you participate in a circular economy yourself in any aspect of your own life?
Actually, I have no clue. I have no clue. I have to take a look. If I do participate in that, like I know that I’m like, do the if it goes like with the recycling, I do recycle, but I don’t know if that’s part of the economy of the story. But yeah, I have to I have no clue. That’s not visible to me, I have to say.
How did you become interested in the circular economy, ideas and practices?
So one thing is like now with this talk, definitely the other thing that like generally like into reuse, reusing the resources or reusing the items that comes from me more naturally and in a sense of just not making more waste or something like that in a sense. And it comes to, I would also say with the with the car sharing, with all this kind of sharing services where I don’t have to own an item and I can repurpose it and so on, that’s I would say that. But yeah, I have to kind of do a bit more research to be.
In your opinion, can circular economy be implemented in individual sectors or industries?
I also don’t know about that. I don’t I don’t have a particular opinion yet, but I would I would say definitely because like in the sense of like we have, we have generally like change of economy, like we do different things, we try different things. As long as it’s not like greenwashing or all these like bad things that some of the big corporations are doing. Definitely. And I think again, if we’re going to change anything, then it has to go through the smart players first and then the that people take that and then the big ones will follow. Yeah.
Okay. Let’s talk about car industry. Do you think the circular economy already exists in the car industry or do you think they should extend?
So I would say it’s more of a forced. That’s definitely I can say because like I am not a fan of like every year we have a new model of the car and like sometimes people like order a car and then by the time they get the car, there’s a new version of the same car. And that’s for me, like doesn’t doesn’t work. And if we had like a longer activity of the of the car or model being sold and produced that immediately kind of like helps us, I would say in general like environmental thinking perspective. And I would say like with the car sharing. So if I buy a car and then later on it goes into a car sharing or something like that, that’s for me, something that would be connected to this topic and would be mean that yes, it could. But for example, there are only like few hotspots, like bigger cities that are doing this, but not generally like not it’s not popular in Europe, it’s not popular everywhere. Like do we know out of the box, okay, there are these companies or there are these options there. So yeah, that’s kind of like it’s mixed from what I think where it is. And yeah, that’s it.
Do you currently own a car?
So at the moment, no, I owned a car before and I’m looking forward to own a car in the future. But the current situation where I live doesn’t make me need of a car. So I do car sharing a majority of time when I need a car because sometimes public transportation is not an option due to being not clean or being traffic jams or something. In a sense of a of that. Like it’s not traffic jam as it’s more like they are repairing some some areas and there’s a lot of repairs sometimes in the city. So sometimes it’s just easier to go with the car. But it does need to be the car directly. It can be also some other mobility options. So at the moment I do not own my car, but I do do car sharing often.
What kind of car are you sharing?
So I do prefer to to to share the smaller cars so it doesn’t have to be electric necessarily, although like it’s more it comes to the situation. What’s there. I do not like to do car sharing of the large cars or something. I’m personally a fan of like SUVs and those kind of cars, but that doesn’t mean I have to drive it all the time. It just means I like these kind of models and everything, but I’m fine totally to drive small cars. What kind of for me is a bit problematic sometimes to specific car manufacturers and how they’re run for the electric cars, for example, makes it a bit more artificial for me. And driving experience is a more artificial not so. So they are few models that I kind of try to escape in the story because I’m not I don’t it’s it feels not as a customer friendly in the sense of someone who drives for like a conventional cars and everything. And that’s why it’s kind of problematic to topics still to me to pinpoint like exact cars. But a majority of the time I when I search, I search for small cars because I’m in a city.
When is the one adjective that comes to mind when you think about car electronics, electronics in the car?
Can you just repeat? Sorry.
What is the adjective or what is the first what you are thinking about electronics in a car you are using or sharing?
When we talk about electric cars, it’s just this torque that is at the beginning, which is for me, so unnatural. I love fast cars and everything, but I don’t like to drive fast on the roads where there are kids and everything. So this torque is the first thing that comes to my mind when we talk about electric cars and when you talk generally about electronics in the car, that’s more entertainment system that come in, a car that are for each manufacturer, they have specific ones and they have their own things. Instead of like having some from these bigger companies that are shareable within the models, which I would prefer more and not to have these So specific ones. Yeah.