Who controls the future of the automotive industry?

Current rumours suggest Google has been working on a ‘super battery’ for the last three years and Apple on an electric car whilst vacuum manufacturer Dyson is reportedly sinking $15m of investment into new battery technology for EVs.

Indeed pure electric, hybrid electric and fuel cell cars are positioned to take $188bn of the whole $1tn market by 2025 and that is just the start. Autonomous vehicles come next taking almost $77bn by 2030, according to the latest IDTechEx research in the report Future Technologies for Hybrid and Pure Electric Cars 2015. The stakes at play in this sector have never been so high with 2015 so far seeing more pieces of the puzzle taking strategic steps towards electrification of the car industry.

The most recent is the billionaire lawsuit of BASF against Umicore in relation to alleged infringement of the later into Argonne Lab NMC patents. On the other hand, at the end of February Toyota announced in Tokyo the most recent highlights about the Mirai fuel cell car and how it represents the beginning of a new era, with the support of the Japanese government. However, VW is not so sure about this ‘new era’ and reportedly acquired a stake in a new solid state battery start-up. The latest news suggests that the Renault-Nissan Alliance is tense in relation to Carlos Ghosn's consideration to source batteries from other sources.

What do all these developments mean? What future automotive technologies will be available and how will they be used by players to capture value? IDTechEx's market research reports on Autonomous Vehicles for Land, Water and Air 2015-2025 and forthcoming report on Post Lithium Ion batteries will also provide answers.