Leading innovators in ICE bearings for the automotive industry

<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="/ueditor/php/upload/image/20230523/1684825238137107.png" title="1684825238137107.png" alt="2.png"/></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The automotive industry continues to be a hotbed of innovation, with activity driven by the need for comfort, convenience and safety, and growing importance of technologies such as connected and autonomous vehicles. In the last three years alone, there have been over 1.2 million patents filed and granted in the automotive industry, according to GlobalData’s report on&nbsp;Innovation in Automotive: ICE bearings.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">However, not all innovations are equal and nor do they follow a constant upward trend. Instead, their evolution takes the form of an S-shaped curve that reflects their typical lifecycle from early emergence to accelerating adoption, before finally stabilising and reaching maturity.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Identifying where a particular innovation is on this journey, especially those that are in the emerging and accelerating stages, is essential for understanding their current level of adoption and the likely future trajectory and impact they will have.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">290+ innovations will shape the automotive industry</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">According to GlobalData’s Technology Foresights, which plots the S-curve for the automotive industry using innovation intensity models built on over 619,000 patents, there are 290+ innovation areas that will shape the future of the industry.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Within the&nbsp;emerging&nbsp;innovation stage, resilient spoke wheels, auto-transmission lubrication circuits, and ignition switching engines are disruptive technologies that are in the early stages of application and should be tracked closely. Engine purge actuators, electro-dynamic braking, and adsorptive vapour recovery system estimation are some of the&nbsp;accelerating&nbsp;innovation areas, where adoption has been steadily increasing. Among&nbsp;maturing&nbsp;innovation areas are collision avoidance braking control system and direct injection type engines, which are now well established in the industry.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">ICE bearings&nbsp;are&nbsp;a key innovation area in&nbsp;automotive</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Crankshaft bearings enable the crankshaft to rotate while being supported by the connecting rods&#39; oscillating forces and the inertia forces produced by the shaft&#39;s components. The crankcase houses the main bearings between an electric motor and a combustion engine.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">GlobalData’s analysis also uncovers the companies at the forefront of each innovation area and assesses the potential reach and impact of their patenting activity across different applications and geographies. According to GlobalData, there are 30+ companies, spanning technology vendors, established automotive companies, and up-and-coming start-ups engaged in the development and application of ICE bearings.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">‘Application diversity’ measures the number of different applications identified for each relevant patent and broadly splits companies into either ‘niche’ or ‘diversified’ innovators.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">‘Geographic reach’ refers to the number of different countries each relevant patent is registered in and reflects the breadth of geographic application intended, ranging from ‘global’ to ‘local’.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Mahle, with 149 patents, is one of the top companies to file for ICE bearings patents. The corporation is concerned with the design, production and marketing of ICE bearings technology. The company provides hybrid bearings, which have more rotating parts and run efficiently in all conditions such as peak power requirements. AB SKF, Toyota, and Ford are a few other notable patent filers in the same industry.</span></p>