Technology discontinuation as a continuous process: diesel, sustainability, and the politics of delay
提出将技术废止视为贯穿技术生命周期的持续过程，通过欧洲柴油车案例，分析废止压力如何与可持续性想象互动，揭示拖延政治和所谓技术中立性如何偏向延续而非废止。
The discontinuation of technologies - such as combustion engines , coal and nuclear power generation , or certain types of plastics - has become central to debates on sustainability , public health, and safety. Much of the existing literature and policy discourse, however, treats discontinuation as a discrete, well-defined phase at the end of a technology's lifecycle and as the implicit flipside of technology introduction. In this article, we propose conceptualizing discontinuation as a continuous process that unfolds throughout the entirety of a technology's lifespan, playing a critical role in its long-term survival. Drawing on a longitudinal, in-depth case study of diesel cars in Europe, we analyze how significant discontinuation pressures have existed for decades, repeatedly challenging, destabilizing, reconfiguring, and ultimately re-stabilizing diesel as a socio-technical system. We present a framework that captures how discontinuation efforts emerge, gain credibility, evolve, or are dismissed in relation to broader, stable imaginaries of socially desirable futures. In the case of diesel, we find that discontinuation efforts and counter-efforts specifically engaged two competing imaginaries of sustainability - one focused on local air quality and the other on global climate change - which allowed actors to strategically frame and rationalize the technology in ways that served their interests. By viewing discontinuation controversies as an inherent and continuous feature of a technology's durability, new policy options come to the fore. These include the need to shift the focus from the technology in question to what persists underneath, challenging the stability of underlying sustainability framings rather than merely reacting to moments of crisis. It also entails scrutinizing the politics of delay and the “technological neutrality”, which tend to favor continuation, and treating discontinuation policy more seriously as a form of innovation policy supported by long-term strategies, toolkits, and equivalent levels of funding.