Paving the road to electric vehicles – A patent analysis of the automotive supply industry

Supplier involvement in eco-innovation: The co-development of electric, hybrid and fuel cell technologies within the Japanese automotive industry

“…Using firm-level data from the Toyota supplier association we identify that supplier electric capabilities and supplier hybrid capabilities are positively related to the occurrence of ecoinnovation co-patents. This supports recent research within the eco-innovation literature that highlights the important contribution supplier eco-innovation capabilities make to the codevelopment of green technologies between automakers and their suppliers (Roscoe et al, 2016;Borgstedt et al, 2017). However, supplier fuel cell capabilities are not found to be associated with eco-innovation co-patenting within the Toyota supplier association, which may be due to Toyota's strategic decision to primarily develop this radical innovation in-house with a limited amount of supplier involvement (Ehsani et al, 2018).…”

“…In particular, Roscoe et al (2016) highlights that comparatively little is known about the determinants of inter-organizational eco-innovations and the role played by strategic alliances within complex supplier networks. Moreover, this research area is also of practical importance as managers and policy makers are keen to understand how Toyota, its suppliers, and other Japanese automakers were able to develop a sustainable competitive advantage across all three alternative fuel platforms within the automotive industry (Borgstedt et al, 2017). Although many in the practitioner literature have encouraged managers to develop ecoinnovations (Xavier et al, 2017), few are aware of the mechanisms that drive the development of inter-organizational eco-innovations within supplier networks.…”

Fuel-Cell Electric Vehicles: Plotting a Scientific and Technological Knowledge Map

“…Despite the scientific and technological progress made in recent years, this has not been enough to put a marketable product on the market. According to Borgstedt et al [6], an influential factor may be the high degree of technological complexity, as well as the infrastructures necessary for refueling stations, plus the great advances made in other technologies related to Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles (ICEVs) and Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs). After observing, among other things, certain coincidences between the increases in scientific-technological development and initiatives that stimulate innovation, such as the zero-emission vehicle legislation or the Kyoto protocol, and that the abrupt fall in the number of patents has occurred at times of unstable investment or financial uncertainty, Haslam et al [72] recommend helping the transition occur: Developing new indicators related to the Kyoto protocol, "design complexity" analysis to identify technical bottlenecks, re-assessing the triple-helix innovation that promotes disruptive technologies, and analyzing new methods for producing hydrogen.…”

“…With this definition in mind, EVs may include battery electric vehicles (BEV), hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), and fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV) [5]. As sustainable products, FCEVs bring hope for solving several mobility-related problems, as they have no local emissions [6]. One of the most promising ways to achieve an ideal zero-emissions replacement is to use cleanly produced electricity from non-fossil fuels, such as hydrogen, using influential proxies for assessing the performance of industry research and development (R&D).…”

“…For these reasons, the patent is an important tool for investigating a technological development from an economic perspective [38]. According to Borgstedt et al [6], in the automotive industry, patents are the most common way to protect intellectual property, so it can be used as innovative output. Patent data analysis allows us to ascertain the technological state of the studied technology, defining who, when, where, and what is being developed by mining relevant data from patent documents in terms of technology development [39].…”