IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03927381.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mirroring in production? Early evidence from the scale-up of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs)

Author

Listed:
  • Marc Alochet

    (i3-CRG - Centre de recherche en gestion i3 - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - Université Paris-Saclay - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • John Paul Macduffie

    (Department of Management [University of Pennsylvania])

  • Christophe Midler

    (i3-CRG - Centre de recherche en gestion i3 - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - Université Paris-Saclay - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

The mirroring hypothesis is central to modularity theory, positing isomorphism between technical interdependencies of a product and organizational arrangements. When a product's design becomes more modular, a full mirroring response would change both its manufacturing and its supply chain. We evaluate this prediction for Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), observing whether automakers have mirrored the modular BEV architecture in either internal production processes, external sourcing arrangements, or both. Our data from 19 automakers show that, to date, BEVs are manufactured in their assembly plants alongside conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). New automakers with fully BEV plants utilize essentially the same production process. Furthermore, automakers make—or ally to make—key Electric Vehicle (EV) systems, rather than outsourcing them. We discuss the implications of this partial mirroring for modularity theory and ask whether these arrangements will persist once BEV sales surpass ICEVs.

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Alochet & John Paul Macduffie & Christophe Midler, 2023. "Mirroring in production? Early evidence from the scale-up of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs)," Post-Print hal-03927381, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03927381
    DOI: 10.1093/icc/dtac028
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03927381v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-03927381v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1093/icc/dtac028?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
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Christophe Midler & Marc Alochet, 2023. "When regulations shape the future of an industry, the case of the high voltage battery," Post-Print hal-04303575, HAL.

    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:hal:journl:hal-03927381. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.