The Study on the Function of New Energy Automobile Innovation System

The current global automotive industry is facing enormous challenges of the financial crisis and energy and environmental issues.Developing new energy vehicles has been a consensus in the international community.For instance,the United States has adopted the free car project, high-tech vehicle manufacturing incentive plan and other projects to support the research and development on the new generation of electric vehicle;Japan announced the next generation automotive strategy to guide the development of new energy automotive industry;European Union issued the strategy on clean and energy efficient vehicles,to development the new energy automotive industrial policy framework.In order to promote the industrial structure upgrade and to build the international competitive advantage,China promulgated the Decision of the State Council on Accelerating the Fostering and Development of Strategic Emerging Industries.Since the new energy automotive industry is included in the seven strategic emerging industries,the industry is facing the unprecedented challenges and opportunities.The research of new energy automobile industry in China is mainly concentrated in two aspects,which are the problem of developing the new energy vehicles and the industrial policy environment.However,the existing research neglected the new energy automobile industry is a complex system,and didn't assess the problem from the view of the whole industry.Therefore it is hard to grasp the reasons for hampering the development of new energy automobile industry and market.The functional analysis for innovation system is the emerging research method in recent years for describing and analyzing innovation system operation mechanism,it can be a complement research method for the actor-structure based innovation system approach.This paper introduces the innovative system's functional analysis framework.According to the characteristics of China's new energy automotive industry,the paper starts the analysis from introducing the system structure,which consists of actor,network and institution.China's new energy automotive industry system's actor are vehicle and parts enterprises,government,knowledge organization,Financial organization et al.,which form the network of the whole industry.The institution of the system can affect the actor's behavior and relationship.Based on the analyze to the innovation system of China's new energy automotive industry,this paper finds out that China's new energy automotive industry innovation system has seven main functions,namely:knowledge acquisition and diffusion,legitimation,market formation,infrastructure and platform construction,resource mobilization,Industry chain integration,development of positive externalities.Every function has various characteristics and performs diversely in the new energy automotive industry.Through the analyze,the paper reveals the key inducing and blocking factors affecting the industry's development in China.The inducing factors are the large potential market demand,the government's strong supporting willingness,and enterprises' positive attitude,which are the advantages for China's new energy automobile industry development.Meanwhile the high-cost of product and facilities,local protectionism and lagging business model are the main impediments.The research shows that the China's construction of new energy automobile innovation system has achieved a good result,but it is not perfect and needs to be further improved by combining the situation of China's development situation and the international competitiveness.In the end,combining the functional system method and the industry development status,the paper puts forward policy recommendations for tackling the obstacles,which are mainly on promoting the RD investment activities,improve policy guidance mechanism,Strengthen infrastructure construction and Innovative business model.In all,the paper provides a comprehensive analysis method for the industrial system study,and put forward a reference and inspiration for the development and policy making in China's new energy automotive industry.And the method can also be used in other industry study to make it more reasonable.