Study On Business Model Innovation Of Electric Vehicle Industry

Electric vehicles(EV), as one of the strategic industries, is of important meaning to relieve the pressure of energy shortage and environment, achieve corner overtaking for the automotive industry, achieve transformation and upgrading for the manufacturing industry and nurture new economic growth points. However, traditional business models have difficulties in EV commercialization because of higher costs, limited driving range, limited availability of charging infrastructure, etc. Therefore, business model innovation has been the essential issue of EV industry.This paper analyses the intension and elements of EV business model systematically. On this base, EV business model evaluation framework for the early stage is constructed, with criteria weighed by AHP. Then this paper conducts empirical study on four typical cases from three countries using the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. At last, two innovation paths of business model and five practical suggestions are raised for development of EV industry.Results from the theoretical research and empirical analysis indicate that business model of EV industry is an organic system that meets people's travel demand and environment-friendly demand, and that create business value continuously at the same time. Practically, business model innovation can be conducted through value proposition, stakeholders structure, profit model, key resources and cash flow structure. Secondly, In thebusiness model evaluation framework for the EV industry of early stage, criteria that weighed most are reducing vehicles ownership costs, reducing customer exposure to electricity prices and using intelligent charging infrastructure. Thirdly, from the perspective of business model innovation, business model can be divided into two types: integrated business models and open business models, and strengths of the former lie in solving customer barrier to adoption while that of latter lie in creating business value. Integrated business models like Wanxiang and Autolib rank “good”, higher than open business models like BYD and Tesla, which is usually OEM-dominated.