With profit margins shrinking in the smartphone segment, some companies are starting to explore new sources of revenue. According to The Wall Street Journal, several patents have cropped up this year which indicate that Samsung might be making its way into the electric car market. The applications include parts and technology for electric vehicles, although Samsung told the Journal that it has no interest in entering that market.
“Hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles have gained more popularity due to harmful environmental effects from air pollution and an increasing shortage of fossil fuels,” said Samsung in one of its filings. In another, the company touched upon creating “optimized driving conditions by controlling the vehicle based on a driver’s private medical information.”
Samsung has been on the hunt for new sources of growth for quite some time, from building its own operating system to taking a leap with wearable technology. The electric car market might seem like a bit of a stretch for an electronics company, but Jae H. Lee, an analyst with Daiwa Securities believes that “[s]hould the world enter an era of electric vehicles, the borderlines between auto makers and electronics companies will be blurred.”
