Opportunities and risks during the introduction of fuel cell cars

Abstract

Specific competitive conditions will decide the successful introduction of proton exchange membrane fuel cells as the core of an automotive traction system. Michael Porter’s competitive analysis methodology, the ‘five forces model of competitive structure’, was used in the first part of the paper to develop an overview of the competitive forces in the fuel cell industry. Porter’s model places emphasis on external factors by examining the nature of the market environment. A company is considered to be in a favourable competitive position if the five threatening forces are not too strong. The five forces are potential new competitors, supplier power, customer power, competition in the industry group and the threat of substitutes. The second part gives an overview of success factors that may contribute to a breakthrough of fuel cell technology from niche market to mass market in the automotive industry. This analysis also identifies critical factors that affect both market penetration time and the rate of product diffusion into the mass market. Several fuel cell manufacturers such as Ballard Power Systems, Nuvera and United Technologies Fuel Cells will enter the competitive fuel cell market. Customers will have a high degree of bargaining power as they will merge to a few big companies and will threaten the fuel cell companies with a possible backward integration. The high sum to be invested into research, into development and production methods will lead to high market entrance barriers. A strong competition comes from the possible substitution goods. Although the fuel cell is, in principle, an ideal energy source without local carbon dioxide emission, substitution goods such as further developed gasoline and diesel engines, hybrid and compressed natural gas vehicles will have medium‐term competitive advantages.