Fuel-Cell Electric Vehicles: Plotting a Scientific and Technological Knowledge Map

Abstract

The fuel-cell electric vehicle (FCEV) has been defined as a promising way to avoid road transport greenhouse emissions, but nowadays, they are not commercially available. However, few studies have attempted to monitor the global scientific research and technological profile of FCEVs. For this reason, scientific research and technological development in the field of FCEV from 1999 to 2019 have been researched using bibliometric and patent data analysis, including network analysis. Based on reports, the current status indicates that FCEV research topics have reached maturity. In addition, the analysis reveals other important findings: (1) The USA is the most productive in science and patent jurisdiction; (2) both Chinese universities and their authors are the most productive in science; however, technological development is led by Japanese car manufacturers; (3) in scientific research, collaboration is located within the tri-polar world (North America-Europe-Asia-Pacific); nonetheless, technological development is isolated to collaborations between companies of the same automotive group; (4) science is currently directing its efforts towards hydrogen production and storage, energy management systems related to battery and hydrogen energy, Life Cycle Assessment, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The technological development focuses on technologies related to electrically propelled vehicles; (5) the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy and SAE Technical Papers are the two most important sources of knowledge diffusion. This study concludes by outlining the knowledge map and directions for further research.

Drivers and Barriers to the Adoption of Fuel Cell Passenger Vehicles and Buses in Germany

“…Consequently, the low availability of vehicles then reduces the rationale for market investors and policymakers to commit to rolling out refuelling infrastructure [53,54]. Meanwhile, the supply of vehicles may also be impeded by technological difficulties in mass producing components like fuel cells and hydrogen tanks [55] or the lack of alternatives to expensive materials used in these [23,49,56]. The absence of strong environmental policies forcing investments in ZEV technologies will also likely hamper the growth of hydrogen mobility.…”

“…The maturity, reliability and performance of core components in vehicles (e.g., fuel cell stacks and fuel tanks) and the ability to mass-produce these. [9,23,28,49,55,56,62] Table 1. Cont.…”

Research and Development Investment and Collaboration Framework for the Hydrogen Economy in South Korea

“…The other approach involves focusing on the value chain of the hydrogen economy from an infometrics perspective (bibliometrics and scientometrics), which is based on a paper and/or patent [1, [32][33][34][35][36], or from the evaluation of green energy sources [37][38][39]. Some scholars have presented future research directions by investigating the evolution of hydrogen research regarding production [1, 33,40,41], storage/transportation [33,34,42], and utilization [35,36,[43][44][45][46][47], as discussed in Section 1.1.2. Several studies have revealed the emergence of biohydrogenation, photocatalysis, and water splitting as methods for producing hydrogen from renewable energy sources [1, 33,40,41], thus revealing prominent international cooperation among different countries/regions and institutions [42].…”

Sustainable Mobility: A Review of Possible Actions and Policies

“…HFCs are currently one of the least used types of alternative fuels, but they are destined to catch up. Accordingly, research production in this field is significantly growing up and reaching a maturity [259]. A development of HFC Vehicle (HFCV) technology is represented by its battery hybridization called Plug-in Hydrogen Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicles (PHFCVs), which are advantageous when compared to traditional hybrid vehicles because they use a single electric motor.…”