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The purpose of this paper is to propose a research design that seeks to explore the evolutionary pathways of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) industry through employing the business ecosystem framework, which focuses on the interaction between firms, government officials, industrial associations and customers; and at the same time to identify the necessary strategic capabilities behind such emergence.

Qualitative research methodology will be employed such that multiple case studies will be carried out through the implementation of interviews with companies, industrial players and policy makers.

The research findings of this paper include a comprehensive depiction of the emerging business ecosystem structure of the EV industry, which contributed in building the main elements of the proposed conceptual research framework.

The research findings of this paper are based on one province in China; also the business ecosystem of the emerging EV industry may differ in different regions across the country.

Practically, this research would be able to provide a tool for industrial players and policy makers through the formulation of a capability maturity model, which allows the evaluation of the capabilities of the corresponding ecosystem players, so as to permit the assessment of their positions with the provision of guidelines benefiting the advancement of emerging industries.

This paper offers original theoretical contributions through developing strategic capabilities of emerging business ecosystems and is the first to provide a comprehensive structure on the low‐speed EV industry in China.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of various laser texture parameters (diameter of pit, depth of pit and area density) on the tribological and tribo-vibration characteristics of tapered roller bearings (TRBs) under full oil lubricate conditions.

The laser surface texture parameters include: the diameter of pit (D: 60 µm, 100 µm, 200 µm), the depth of pit (H: 5 µm, 10 µm, 20 µm) and the area density (S: 6%, 12%, 24%). The outer raceway used laser marking device to prepare many regular pits. The tribological and tribo-vibration characteristics of pitting laser textured TRBs under full oil lubrication were studied by using the MMX-1A universal wear tester machine and vibration testing equipment. Through experiment and analysis, the effects of raceway pitting textures on tribological and tribo-vibration noise performance of TRBs were summarized.

When pit-textured TRBs operate under full oil, compared with the non-textured bearings, the average coefficient of friction and wear amount are significantly reduced. When D = 100 µm, H = 10 µm, S = 12%, average coefficient of friction = 0.00195 and wear amount = 0.12 mg, they are all at their minimum values. Compared to the same condition of non-textured groups, the coefficient of friction decreases by 66.6%, and the wear amount decreases by 79.3%. The energy from time-frequency and power spectrum analyses is mainly concentrated at high frequencies, with the signal power of pitting textured groups being lower than non-textured when the Y-direction is around 3600 Hz.

The experimental work can provide a reference for the investigation on the pitting textured TRBs.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-09-2024-0357/

This study aims to replace petroleum-based lubricating oils with sustainable biomaterials, addressing issues associated with existing alternatives, such as poor performance, high cost and limited availability.

The transformation of agricultural waste cardanol, a nonedible vegetable oil that is abundantly available, into green cardanyl acetate (CA) biolubricating ester oil. The potential of CA as a base stock for lubricants is validated by assessing its lubrication performance.

CA exhibited a higher viscosity index, flash point and thermal stability than commercially available mineral-based (CTL3, coal-to-liquid) and synthetic (PAO2, poly-alpha-olefin) lubricant base stocks. Moreover, CA exhibits excellent anticorrosivity properties as well as PAO2 and CTL3. The tribological properties of CA were evaluated, and the results show that CA exhibits a smaller average wear scar diameter (WSD) of 0.54 mm than that of PAO2 (0.85 mm) and CTL3 (0.90 mm). In extreme pressure tests, acylated CA demonstrated the highest last nonseizure load capacity at 510 N, outperforming commercial CTL3 (491 N) and PAO2 (412 N). All results demonstrate that CA displays an excellent series of base stock properties.

The novelty of this work lies in the utilization of renewable agricultural waste, cashew nut shell liquid, to produce a high-value biolubricant as an alternative to commercial fossil-based lubricants. The renewable nature, low cost, and large-scale availability of raw materials pave a new path for the production and application of biolubricants, showcasing the immense potential of converting agricultural waste into high-value products.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-03-2024-0064/