Mapping electric-mobility: Standards infrastructure for market uptake

Abstract

This paper analyzes the standardization landscape that is now taking shape to support market uptake of the electric vehicle ecosystem. For comparative qualitative analysis, data was taken from the three relevant expert assessments recently conducted by DIN, NPE and ANSI EVSP. Each of these three compendiums views a different set of standards as the basis needed for achieving market proliferation. In total, these studies referenced 1423 standards. Contrary to our expectations, only 18% of those standards were cited by all three compendiums. This surprisingly small set of standards includes documents from the international standardization entities, ISO and IEC, but also from the US entities, SAE and UL. The EV ecosystem is founded on standards for road-vehicle engineering. Nevertheless, standards from the fields of electrical engineering, telecommunications and information technology play an equally important role in ensuring the feasibility and interoperability of the subsystems upon which the overall ecosystem is built. Consequently, the question of which standards will be most important for ensuring market uptake remains open. On the basis of these findings, we recommend a conceptual framework that clarifies stakeholders' opportunities for decreasing risk by leveraging implementation of central and peripheral standards selected to match the company's innovation policies and competitive strategies. This decision is governed by balancing the trade-offs between product performance and standards compliance.