Technological Innovation in the Automobile Sector : A Case Study of Electric Vehicles Using Patent Analytics Approach

Innovation in the automobile sector, is happening at a fast pace, especially in terms of environment friendly-technologies. This paper is an exploratory study to understand how technology is evolving in this sector, in context to electric vehicles (EV). For this, patent data, the classic proxy for innovation, are analyzed for the period 2015-2020. The trends in technology, across the globe are studied in terms of geographical distribution, top applicants, top inventors, most targeted CPC and IPC classifications. The findings indicate the readiness of major players going fully electric very soon, implying that the world is moving ahead towards greener and efficient transport. China has emerged with the highest number of patents but major players of this technology are from Japan. Managers can use such insights from patent data for finding the companies’ technical edge, the market for their business and the grey areas where R&D can still be pursued in this domain