The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the future developments in the automotive industry

Abstract

After a brief description of the concept of technological innovation, the types and patterns that these innovations follow over time, we will review the most important events that have been driven by the development of some breakthrough innovations: the industrial revolutions. Subsequently, the main historical events of the first three industrial revolutions will be analysed, going then to focus on the concept of industrial revolution, which are the aspects that determine it and which are the characteristics of the innovations (products and processes) that have led to the development of these phenomena. For this reason, the concept of General Purpose Technology (GPT) will be introduced. With this background, we will try to define whether the innovations that we are witnessing today can really represent the trigger of a new industrial revolution, already known as Industry 4.0, and the effects that could derive from it. We will deepen the analysis of this new phenomenon focusing on an industry that heavily depend on technological innovation in every aspect from the production process to the final product: the automotive industry. We will concentrate on the current developments this sector is facing given the most recent technologies. Finally, analysing a patent database of innovations that according to EPO’s directives can be classified as 4IR’s technologies, we will try to find out how the innovative landscape of the automotive industry is evolving, which are the potential new entrants in the market and which are the main trends of future innovation in this field.