Automotive & EV Systems Patents: Top Companies & Trends 2026
- 28.8% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees account for 37,962 of the 131,903 records in scope — a narrow group holding a large share of a very large field.
- Propulsion and control dominate the claim map. B60L electric vehicle propulsion (6.2% of records) and B60W hybrid/joint vehicle control (5.0%) carry far more filing density than battery chemistry classes like H01M (0.9%).
- Filing has cooled from its 2022 peak. Volume peaked at 1,680 in 2022; the complete-year comparison shows 2021's 1,443 falling to 1,258 by 2024, a -13% move — not a collapse, but no longer accelerating.
Filing growth compares 2021 (1,443 records) with 2024 (1,258) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 131,903 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This dataset spans 131,903 published records filed against automotive technology, electric vehicle and vehicle system terms, cross-matched with EV platform, battery, charging infrastructure, autonomous driving, ADAS, hydrogen vehicle, internal combustion engine and vehicle manufacturing terms. It captures the period from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off, though the most recent one to two years are necessarily incomplete because publication typically lags filing by roughly eighteen months.
The scope is broad by design: it mixes propulsion hardware, hybrid and drive control software, power electronics, and driver-assistance and autonomy claims under one umbrella. That breadth is why the IPC composition below matters as much as the assignee ranking — the same record can sit in propulsion and control classes simultaneously, so the technology mix tells a different story than the company mix alone.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 131,903 records: how filing volume has moved year over year, and how it splits across the IPC subclasses that define the field's technical center of gravity.
A decade of filing activity, cresting in 2022
Annual filings climbed from 1,040 in 2017 to a peak of 1,680 in 2022. Using the last fully-published years for a fair comparison, 2021's 1,443 filings dropped to 1,258 by 2024 — a -13% move over three years. Years after 2024 in the chart will keep rising as publication catches up, so read the tail as incomplete, not declining.
Propulsion and control classes lead; battery and compute classes trail
B60L (electric vehicle propulsion) and B60W (hybrid/joint vehicle control) are the two densest classes at 6.2% and 5.0% of all records respectively, with B60K (vehicle propulsion & drive) close behind at 3.8%. Power supply/grid systems (H02J), engine control (F02D), non-electric control (G05D), batteries and fuel cells (H01M) and digital data processing (G06F) each sit under 2% — a signal that claim pressure is heaviest on drivetrain and control architecture, not on cell chemistry or compute.
Shares are the percentage of the 131,903 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Automotive & EV Systems Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about automotive & ev systems patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaA representative filing and the most-cited records
CO2 Electrochemical reduction based solar powered hybrid internal combustion engine and battery electric vehicle
A CO2 electrochemical reduction based solar powered hybrid internal combustion engine and battery electric vehicle system employs CO2 to drive hybrid electric vehicles. The inflatable non-imaging solar concentrator based concentrating hybrid solar thermal and photovoltaic system with ultra-high efficiency, extremely low cost, and super-light weight is able to electrochemically reduce the CO2 into CO and supply fuel to CO internal combustion engine. The thermoelectric activated thermal electricity storage is integrated into the system to store thermal energy and regenerate electric power.Filed as US20230211656A1, published 2023-07-06.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20190258251A1 | Systems and methods for safe and reliable autonomous vehicles | 1,048 |
| 2 | US9026347B2 | Smart electric vehicle (EV) charging and grid integration apparatus and methods | 1,039 |
| 3 | US5343970A | Hybrid electric vehicle | 875 |
| 4 | US20100017045A1 | Electrical demand response using energy storage in vehicles and buildings | 642 |
| 5 | US20200294401A1 | A Method and Apparatus for Collecting and Using Sensor Data from a Vehicle | 615 |
| 6 | US20110204720A1 | Efficient usage, storage, and sharing of energy in buildings, vehicles, and equipment | 598 |
| 7 | US5291960A | Hybrid electric vehicle regenerative braking energy recovery system | 595 |
| 8 | US20130179061A1 | Smart electric vehicle (EV) charging and grid integration apparatus and methods | 589 |
| 9 | US5548200A | Universal charging station and method for charging electric vehicle batteries | 586 |
| 10 | US20120188100A1 | Terminal, apparatus and method for providing customized auto-valet parking service | 572 |
Citation counts inside a searched corpus tend to favour older filings that have had more time to accumulate citations — read them as a signal of influence, not of current technical importance.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Browse MCP servers →What the data means for filing strategy
Three findings that shape where a new filing has room and where it will collide with dense prior art.
A narrow leadership group over a very large field
The five leading assignees hold 37,962 of the 131,903 records in scope, and the ranked ten extend that to 39.9%. That leaves the majority of the field distributed across the remaining ranked companies and a long tail outside the ranking — dense at the top, open everywhere else.
Drivetrain and control claims dominate over chemistry
Electric vehicle propulsion and hybrid/joint vehicle control together outweigh battery-cell and fuel-cell claims by a wide margin. Filers converging on B60L and B60W are entering the most contested part of the map; H01M and G06F carry comparatively light claim density for their commercial importance.
Post-peak plateau, not a downturn
Volume peaked at 1,680 filings in 2022 and has eased since, with the last comparable complete years showing a 13% decline from 2021 to 2024. The 2025-2026 figures in the raw trend will rise as publication lag closes, so this is a cooling from a high point rather than an exit from the field.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to automotive & ev systems patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Leaders, joint filers and where the momentum has cooled
The ranking is dominated by full-line automakers and their tier-one suppliers, with recent-year filing counts falling sharply across nearly every tracked assignee — consistent with the publication-lag effect rather than a genuine retreat from the field.
A single assignee well ahead of the field
The leading assignee's record count is more than three times the fifth-place figure of 4,179, and nearly eight times the tenth-place figure of 1,752 — a steep drop-off rather than a gradual taper.
Corporate-group co-filing is concentrated in one pairing
Of the 10 co-assignee pairs identified, one pairing between two affiliated automakers accounts for 951 shared records — far ahead of the next pairings, which sit at 56 each and involve a university technology-transfer partner.
Recent-year counts have fallen across the board
Every assignee with recent-year momentum data shows single-digit filing counts and steep year-over-year declines in the latest tracked year. This pattern matches the roughly 18-month publication lag across the whole dataset rather than a genuine pullback by any one filer.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Toyota Motor Corporation | 5 | -95% |
| Ford Global Technologies, LLC | 2 | -71% |
| Hyundai Motor Company | 1 | -98% |
| Kia Corporation | 1 | -98% |
| Cummins Inc. | 1 | -88% |
| Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. | 1 | — |
| GM Global Technology Operations LLC | 0 | -100% |
| Jaguar Land Rover Limited | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to specific questions worth running deeper before committing a filing budget or a freedom-to-operate opinion.
Map claim scope inside B60L and B60W
These two subclasses carry the highest filing density in the field. Before filing here, a claim-by-claim map of the leading assignees' B60L and B60W portfolios will show whether a proposed architecture is genuinely novel or sits inside an existing claim's scope.
Explore B60L and B60W filings in EurekaCheck the co-filing pairing for licensing signals
A single co-assignee pairing carries 951 shared records, far more than any other pairing in the dataset. That scale of joint filing usually reflects a formal cross-licensing or joint-development arrangement worth understanding before approaching either party.
Trace co-assignee relationships in EurekaWatch the under-claimed branches for a first-mover filing
Bidirectional power electronics, fast-charging thermal management and fuel-cell balance-of-plant control show thinner filing density than their role in commercial systems would suggest. That gap narrows fast once one major assignee moves.
Run a white-space search in EurekaAutomotive and EV systems patents: common questions
The assignee ranking behind this dataset covers 100 companies, and it is led by a single automaker whose 13,922 records are more than three times the fifth-place count of 4,179. The top five combined hold 28.8% of all 131,903 records in scope, and the top ten hold 39.9%. That still leaves a majority of filings spread across the remaining ranked companies and an unranked long tail, so leadership at the top does not mean the field is closed to new entrants.
In this dataset, B60L covers electric vehicle propulsion specifically and holds 6.2% of all records, while B60W covers hybrid and joint vehicle control systems that coordinate multiple power sources and holds 5.0%. B60K, covering vehicle propulsion and drive more generally, adds another 3.8%. Because a single patent record can carry more than one IPC class, a filing on a hybrid drivetrain often appears in more than one of these three classes at once.
Filing volume peaked at 1,680 records in 2022 and has since eased; comparing the last two fully-published years shows 2021's 1,443 filings falling to 1,258 by 2024, a -13% change. Figures for 2025 and 2026 in the raw trend are lower still, but that reflects publication lag of roughly eighteen months rather than an actual drop in filing. Treat any year after 2024 in this dataset as a partial count that will rise as more records publish.
Battery and fuel-cell chemistry (H01M) and digital data processing (G06F) each account for under 1% of records, well below the propulsion and control classes that dominate the field. That gap suggests sub-areas such as bidirectional vehicle-to-grid power electronics, fast-charging thermal management, and fuel-cell balance-of-plant control carry lighter claim density than their commercial importance would suggest, making them worth a closer novelty search before ruling out a filing.
The recent-year momentum figures in this dataset show declines of -71% to -98% year-over-year across nearly every large assignee, but this is a publication-lag artefact rather than a real pullback. Patent applications typically publish around eighteen months after filing, so the most recent one to two years in any patent dataset are systematically undercounted until the missing records catch up. The safer comparison is between the last two fully-published years, which in this field shows a -13% change from 2021 to 2024 — a real but much smaller cooling.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.