Ongoing advances in electric vehicles

After the first and elemental invention of wheels, the transportation industry and logistical infrastructure have come a long way away on the path of modernization. Indeed, innovation does not ever have a dead-end, it is a continuous process dovetailed with the industrial kinetics. The automotive industry, for the movement on hard surfaces, has explored different sources of energy. In 1786, when the steam engines entered the scene in all seriousness, it was reckoned as a pathbreaking advancement in the western industrial world. From the 19th?century onwards, electric motors experimented on vehicles and such vehicles were in vogue on the western European roads and a great deal of interest and research were going into that area.

However, the advancements in that direction were stalled when the oil industry overbearingly began to dominate the forum. The debut of Internal combustion engines altogether revolutionized the freight and passenger movement on land air and water in the early 20th?century. Big players emerged in the automobile industry in Germany, France, Italy, the UK, and the US. Also, petroleum refining, exploration, and associated technology underwent impressive advancements. The prevalent dollar-oil market coupling,??the geopolitical bargaining power that petroleum resources wield, the long-term interests of the powerful automobile industry, and the impressive energy density that the liquid fossil fuels are known for have helped the IC engines get comfortably entrenched practically monopolize the domain in the 20th?century. Important innovations such as electric starters, silencers, etc. further enhanced the acceptability of noisy and sooty hydrocarbon fueled vehicles.??However, the looming menace of the Green House effect, the incessant oil crises due to the bargaining space carved out by the oil cartels and the specter of logistical bottlenecks by political uncertainties in the oil-producing regions,?global warming, growing environmental sensitivity, and the unsustainability of fossil fuels have forced many key political and technological players to go back on time and brush up on the old concept of electric vehicles.

But electric vehicles, even during the hard times, had stood ground across the trying years, on the railroads, and urban tramways. On the roads, electric vehicles failed to stand out owing to unimpressive cost, and poor performance especially in the case of storage batteries. At this rate, however, over a foreseeable span of time the hydrocarbon propelled vehicles will be edged out of the roads and electric vehicles will once again be a serious contender for domination on the modern roads. By 2020, the?plug-in electric passenger car industry got ready and braced to take on the world with Tesla Model 3 making its landmark debut. When this industry came of age with the above model, the pioneering efforts by the Hungarian priest Anyos Jedlik, Scottish inventor Robert Anderson, and the Dutch inventor Sibrandus Stratingh found a meaningful continuum.

New interest and new technologies

As zero-emission motor vehicles happened to be a cherished goal, promoted by various provincial and union governments, Chrysler, Ford, CM, Honda, Toyota entered the field with focused research initiatives in the last decade of the 20th?century. However, the newly fanged enthusiasm failed to keep the momentum, as the market always had the last say in such matters. The jittery market is basically driven by profit and not necessarily by environmental missionary zeal. But in recent years the brouhaha has again triggered a new enthusiasm in the automobile sector, with the Tesla initiative taking the lead.

The most important turning point in the race for an EV that is market compatible, and competitive was the invention of lithium-ion battery introduced by John Goodenough, Rachid Yazami, and Akira Yoshina. Though the discovery was made in 1980, the potential for utilizing it as a power source for long-distance travel was realized much later. Tesla made pioneering inroads in that direction.

Fast forward to 2022, and now plug-in?rechargeable electric cars have almost come of age. Their range and capabilities have impressively improved during the past few years, and they seem to have the credibility to nudge out the fossil fuel cars in the foreseeable future. As millions of EVs have hit the modern roads, new variants are appearing regularly and a healthy competition is on to grab a sizeable global market. So much so that by 2018, around 60% of the Norwegian car market is claimed by EV.

Against this backdrop, it is relevant to trace the latest technological progression in the highly competitive area and the key players in the field. Relecura’s tech tracker is the right tool to perform this mission comprehensively and instantly. The major geographies, companies, emerging technologies, emerging companies, and an elaborate taxonomy of the publications are just one click away.

Publication trends

The overview of the publication data from 2017 to 2021 shows a steady increase in patent approvals. For example, in 2017, 8273 patents were granted, and by 2021 it had grown to 13213 across the board. China has emerged as the most significant player in the field, far outdistancing other players. The US, Japan, South Korea, Germany, etc., are other major economies tailing behind.

During the gone half-decade, most of the research and innovations had happened in the areas of electric equipment for vehicles, electric elements (batteries), propulsion units for vehicles, control systems, data processing systems, cycles, vehicle fittings, measurement of electric and magnetic variables, electric machines, etc. It is interesting that most of the global giants are?very much in the race. The front runners, in terms of the volume of publications, are, Hyundai, Ford, Toyota, LG, Honda, Bosch, BYD, Mitsubishi, State Grid Corporation of China, Porche, LG Energy Solutions Ltd., Murata Manufacturing, Nissan, Beijing Electric Vehicles, GM, Panasonic, etc. Tesla is conspicuously absent from the picture. But Tesla products already have made strong inroads in the market. At the same time, many Chinese companies have made their presence known on the scene.

The autogenerated report (please click on the link here to access the report:?https://tracker.relecura.com/index.php/dashboard/openShareLink/2d227a7be28902b57cbc76d9ac9b251c) shows that Tesla publications in the field show a diversifying trend. The company is mostly into solar energy harvesting, batteries, semiconductor devices, power supply and distribution circuits, data processing, etc.???

The breakthrough technologies Tesla is interested in include anti-corrosive paints containing metal dust, coating compositions,?Semiconductor devices sensitive to infra-red, light, electromagnetic or corpuscular radiation, converting radiation into electrical energy, etc.

The emerging technologies are of great interest from a global perspective. The greenhorn technologies are mostly in the areas of?Energy storage systems for electromobility, Electric energy management in electromobility, Electric charging stations, Charging, de-polarizing batteries and supplying loads from batteries, propulsion units comprising of more than one motor, remote control systems, and electrolytes for batteries. Given the pressures and demands on the market, many more research fronts are likely to open up in the years to come.

Over the same period, an impressive number of new companies have entered the field in all seriousness. The IP assets that these companies are armed with would be the grounds for future M&A negotiations and pacemakers for future competition. Another insightful indication is that China is poised to play a major role on the theatre. More Chinese companies are working their way into the limelight. Even amidst the well-stacked global giants, the debutants are also strongly making their presence known. This points to the fact that there is space enough for focused research still left unexplored. The emerging companies include AULTON NEW ENERGY AUTOMOTIVE TECH CO LTD, GUANGZHOU XPENG AUTOMOBILE TECH CO LTD, NIO NEXTEV LTD, AULTON NEW ENERGY AUTOM TECH GROUP, CHONGQING CHANGAN NEW ENERGY AUTOMOBILE TECH CO LTD, YINLONG ENERGY CO LTD, SINOEV HEFEI TECH CO LTD, SHENZHEN OPTIMUMNANO ENERGY CO LTD, JIANGXI JIANGLING GROUP NEW ENERGY AUTOMOBILE CO LTD, and many more.

It is evident, in any case, that more research mobilization is going to go into this area, as the market realities call for that. In addition to established and well-entrenched?traditional automobile giants in Japan, Korea, the US, and Western Europe, more players are likely to steal the show mostly from the emerging economies of Asia and elsewhere.??

To access the autogenerated Relecura report on EV, please click on the link here:?https://tracker.relecura.com/index.php/dashboard/openShareLink/29413e96484e4ea7df0c5b5f1c16c3ae