Symbiotic Evolution Mechanism of the Digital Innovation Ecosystem for the Smart Car Industry

As an essential product in the automotive industry, the smart car industry has attracted widespread attention from scholars. However, there are few studies on the evolution of innovation ecosystems under different modes for the smart car industry. Thus, we construct evolution equations based on the symbiosis theory and Lotka–Volterra. Specifically, MATLAB simulations are utilized to comprehensively analyze the specific conditions for different symbiotic modes. The results indicate that (1) the smart car digital innovation ecosystem includes four symbiotic units. They are vehicle manufacturers, internet enterprises, supporting enterprises, and application groups. The symbiotic relationship among units depends on the symbiosis coefficient. (2) According to the symbiosis coefficient, the system is mainly divided into five symbiotic models: independent symbiosis, competitive symbiosis, parasitic symbiosis, partial symbiosis, and mutually beneficial symbiosis. Moreover, the mutually beneficial symbiosis is the optimal evolution model, and it is also a model that can enable the sustainable development of the smart car industry, which has been verified through case studies.