Abstract: In the context of sustainable development, product developers and engineers often tend to
adapt existing products towards more sustainable products. Ehrenfeld (2008) and Manzini (2009) argue,
however, that a sustainable future is not reached by diminishing ‘unsustainability’. Instead, they claim
that sustainability requires a radical change in thinking and being in the world. Product design should
contribute to this new paradigm. How does this new designers’ concept relate to established frameworks
on new product adoption such as the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (Taylor and Todd, 1995)?
The introduction of an electric vehicle, which is projected to be a new more sustainable transport system,
is taken as a case to explore the integration of these viewpoints. The purpose of this paper is to develop a
conceptual framework of the factors that impact the decision to adopt an electric vehicle, based on
previous conceptual models of the adoption of an innovation and a preliminary qualitative research on
electric vehicle acceptance. This framework will be applied in follow-up research to contribute to the
development of sustainable products