Sjoerd Bakker

Competition in a technological niche: the cars of the future

The notion of ‘niche’ has proved to be useful to account for the emergence of radical innovations. Most studies, however, deal with the development of single emerging technologies. In this paper we address the competition between multiple niche technologies. Within the niche of the ‘car of the future’ two options compete: the battery-electric and the hydrogen car. While both are shielded from regular market forces, they have to compete in terms of R&D funding, supportive regulation and infrastructure build-up. In our case study we trace the competition in terms of design rules and expectations and show how attention for both options has alternated in three phases, which follow the high hopes and subsequent disappointments of the different component technologies. Whereas there is room for simultaneously developed, multiple options at the local level, at the global level attention and expectations seem much more focused on either the one or the other.

Competing expectations: the case of hydrogen storage technologies

The development of a wide range of hydrogen technologies is linked to the promise of hydrogen as a sustainable energy carrier and the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era. These promising technologies, however, have to compete among each other in terms of visibility and credibility. The paper introduces and discusses the notion of competing expectations. To trace the competition between three on-board storage technologies, 263 articles on ‘hydrogen’ and ‘storage’ are analysed with the help of Stephen Toulmins scheme of argumentation. The paper concludes with a characterisation of the ‘expectations’ phase of competing technologies.

Technological hype and disappointment: lessons from the hydrogen and fuel cell case

Technological hypes are powerful manifestations of expectations and can trigger actors to break out of their waiting games. There is a risk, however, that all too high expectations eventually lead to disappointment. In this paper we study the role of hype in technological trajectories and we make use of the recent hydrogen and fuel cell hype as an example. The hydrogen hype has triggered an actual innovation race and a rhetorical expectations race. The eventual disappointment affected mostly those contexts in which high expectations were not translated into stable institutions and long-term commitments. Furthermore we investigate the notion of expectations management and the possible roles therein for the innovating actors, the enactors, and the actors that choose to support them, the selectors.

Alliance Formation in the Automobile Sector During an Era of Ferment

When developing radical innovations, firms often form collaborative relationships with external organizations to have access to additional resources. Therefore, alliance formation is influential in innovation and plays a key role in industrial change. However, most studies have not distinguished between individual alliances and instead aggregated collaborations when analysing firm external R&D efforts. Our research sought to explore manufacturer use of alliances to acquire expertise in key knowledge areas as they developed and commercialized electric vehicles. Alliances from 24 manufacturers were analysed according to type (explorative or exploitative), key knowledge area, and firm type (incumbent or start‐up). The results show distinct alliance formation patterns in different key knowledge areas. Heterogeneity of alliance formation in key knowledge areas indicates that developing a radical innovation is not as simple as acquiring new expertise. Rather it is a complex process where firms seek to develop their own knowledge base and use the expertise of other companies. This likely stems from a desire to develop technologies connected to core business models. Analysing alliance formation according to key knowledge area provides a rich account of how firms approach knowledge acquisition as they develop radical innovations during a time of industrial uncertainty.

An Analysis of the Standardization Process of Electric Vehicle Recharging Systems

Electric vehicles of various manufacturers are being deployed throughout Europe. To recharge these vehicles, an infrastructure of rechargers is needed to enable charging at both private and public parking facilities. Throughout Europe, different charging protocols, plug designs and billing systems have been developed and introduced. In this chapter, the authors describe these standards and analyse the current situation in north-western Europe regarding the installed equipment and initiatives to realize national and international interoperability between currently isolated networks of chargers. The authors conclude that there is a problematic tension between early attempts to define national standards and the eventual need for international interoperability to enable cross-border travel with electric vehicles.