Industrial Policy and Technological Innovation of New Energy Vehicle Industry in China

Promoting the development of new energy vehicles is one of the important measures to ensure energy security and deal with global warming. Technological innovation is an inexhaustible driving force for the development of the new energy vehicle industry. This study considered listed enterprises in China’s new energy vehicle industry as research samples and used the fixed effect model to study the impact of government subsidies on the quantity and quality of technological innovation in the new energy vehicle industry. The empirical results show that government subsidies have a significant positive impact on the quantity of technological innovation in the new energy vehicle industry; however, government subsidies have no significant impact on the quality of technological innovation. Government subsidies increase the quantity of technological innovation in the new energy vehicle industry by increasing R&D investment, mitigating financing constraints, and improving the external attention of enterprises. Compared to downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, government subsidies have a better incentive effect on the technological innovation of upstream enterprises, which increases the number of patents and enhances the quality of utility model patents. Government subsidies have a better effect on promoting the quantity of technological innovation in large enterprises.