The automotive industry continues to be a hotbed of innovation, with activity driven by the need for enhanced driving, fuel efficiency and emission standards, and growing importance of technologies such as electric, connected and autonomous vehicles. In the last three years alone, there have been over 1.2 million patents filed and granted in the automotive industry, according to GlobalData’s report on Cloud in Automotive: EV discharge prediction.
However, not all innovations are equal and nor do they follow a constant upward trend. Instead, their evolution takes the form of an S-shaped curve that reflects their typical lifecycle from early emergence to accelerating adoption, before finally stabilising and reaching maturity.
Identifying where a particular innovation is on this journey, especially those that are in the emerging and accelerating stages, is essential for understanding their current level of adoption and the likely future trajectory and impact they will have.
290+ innovations will shape the automotive industry
According to GlobalData’s Technology Foresights, which plots the S-curve for the automotive industry using innovation intensity models built on over 619,000 patents, there are 290+ innovation areas that will shape the future of the industry.
Within the emerging innovation stage, EV discharge prediction, manufacturability analysis, and AI-assisted CAD are disruptive technologies that are in the early stages of application and should be tracked closely. Vehicle head up displays (HUDs), gesture-sensing AR/VR interfaces, and instrument cluster dashboard are some of the accelerating innovation areas, where adoption has been steadily increasing. Among maturing innovation areas are HUD dashboards and remote trip monitoring, which are now well established in the industry.
Innovation S-curve for cloud in the automotive industry
EV discharge prediction is a key innovation area in cloud
When the EV is in driving mode, the battery goes through a discharge cycle, and when it is plugged in, it goes through a charge cycle. In electric vehicles, AI and cloud technologies are being utilised to estimate the remaining useful life of lithium-ion batteries.
GlobalData’s analysis also uncovers the companies at the forefront of each innovation area and assesses the potential reach and impact of their patenting activity across different applications and geographies. According to GlobalData, there are 100+ companies, spanning technology vendors, established automotive companies, and up-and-coming start-ups engaged in the development and application of EV discharge prediction.
Key players in EV discharge prediction – a disruptive innovation in the automotive industry
‘Application diversity’ measures the number of different applications identified for each relevant patent and broadly splits companies into either ‘niche’ or ‘diversified’ innovators.
‘Geographic reach’ refers to the number of different countries each relevant patent is registered in and reflects the breadth of geographic application intended, ranging from ‘global’ to ‘local’.
Patent volumes related to EV discharge prediction
Source: GlobalData Patent Analytics
Toyota Motor is a leading patent filer in the EV discharge prediction market with 456 patent applications. The company is testing out new ways to predict the lifespan of a lithium-ion battery using a machine learning model. The model can classify batteries as having a long or short life expectancy based solely on the first five charge and discharge cycles. Ford Motor, Porsche Automobil and iRobot are among the other top patent filers in the same category.
To further understand how cloud is disrupting the automotive industry, access GlobalData’s latest thematic research report on Automotive.
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GlobalData, the leading provider of industry intelligence, provided the underlying data, research, and analysis used to produce this article.
GlobalData’s Patent Analytics tracks patent filings and grants from official offices around the world. Textual analysis and official patent classifications are used to group patents into key thematic areas and link them to specific companies across the world’s largest industries.
