Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The Lead Market Potential of Electric Mobility

Abstract

This paper examines the conditions of global dominant innovation design considering e-mobility and the emergence of the lead market in different countries. The development of lead markets is linked to multiple, country-specific factors, which influence the lead market potential and position through the decreasing of national differences over time by benefits of the best compromise of an internationally similar innovation design. Due an early market entry, firms can reach first mover advantages, which they have to protect against followers. Especially eco-innovations could reach a state of a global dominant design, because they are developed to tackle the climate change. The development of globally sold e-mobility products, e.g. the electric motor, the battery or the whole vehicle is more likely. Therefore, the strategy to strengthen a lead market for e-mobility seems to be promising. With the help of a principal component analysis (PCA), different country-specific indicators were applied in the model of five lead market factors. But lead markets change quickly and the given theoretical concept is only estimating opportunities and not forecasting technology developments. After the evaluation the USA obtain the 1st lead market position according to e-mobility, followed by Germany and France. The advantage of the USA is mainly a result of demand incentives and a large sales market. In Germany supply side indicators are more pronounced. The position of France mainly results from well advanced supply and demand side measures in average.