IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cpp/issued/v46y2020i1p73-93.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Frontier Technologies in Non-Core Automotive Regions: Autonomous Vehicle R&D in Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Greig Mordue
  • Danish Karmally

Abstract

For economically advanced locations, a primary response to deindustrialization has been to emphasize higher value-added activities, the target frequently being research and development (R&D). R&D tends to occur in locations proximate to corporate headquarters in general and the headquarters of global lead firms in particular. This pattern is especially evident in the automotive industry. Thus, for countries or regions lacking a targeted industry's global lead firm, generating R&D is problematic. In the automotive industry, the introduction of frontier technologies—such as those supporting autonomous vehicles (AVs)—may reveal new patterns of R&D development, a consequence of firms engaging with innovation ecosystems disconnected from the traditional automotive industry and its headquarters-proximate geographic core or cores. This article explores these matters via a case study of Canada's efforts to build an AV R&D profile. Canada does not host an automaker's headquarters, but it does possess attributes that suggest it is well equipped to conduct such work. After constructing and analyzing a global database of patents related to AVs, this article demonstrates that Canada has contributed R&D focused on AVs at a rate above that which it has reached for automotive R&D overall. It also establishes that globally, even though AV-related R&D has emerged from non-traditional automotive locations, the preponderance of AV-related R&D is converging in core automotive locations: proximate to automakers' global headquarters.

Suggested Citation

  • Greig Mordue & Danish Karmally, 2020. "Frontier Technologies in Non-Core Automotive Regions: Autonomous Vehicle R&D in Canada," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 46(1), pages 73-93, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpp:issued:v:46:y:2020:i:1:p:73-93
    DOI: 10.3138/cpp.2019-015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/cpp.2019-015
    Download Restriction: access restricted to subscribers

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3138/cpp.2019-015?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michaela Trippl & Simon Baumgartinger-Seiringer & Elena Goracinova & David A Wolfe, 2021. "Automotive regions in transition: Preparing for connected and automated vehicles," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1158-1179, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    automotive; autonomous vehicles; Canada; disruptive innovation; frontier technologies; industrial policy; sustaining innovation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L52 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Industrial Policy; Sectoral Planning Methods
    • L62 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - Automobiles; Other Transportation Equipment; Related Parts and Equipment
    • O25 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Industrial Policy
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpp:issued:v:46:y:2020:i:1:p:73-93. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Iver Chong (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.utpjournals.press/loi/cpp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.