Dynamic decisions in an electric vehicle battery supply chain under co-opetition.

Co-opetition plays an important role in decision-making of the supply chain. This paper investigates an electric vehicle battery (EV battery) supply chain containing one manufacturer and two competing retailers. We construct three retailer co-opetition models and characterize equilibrium results using differential game theory and Bellman's optimality principle. By comparing and analyzing the wholesale price, retail prices, technology investment and quality level of batteries, we explore the influence of retailer co-opetition on supply chain dynamic decisions. The results show that: (1) the enhancement of the technology investment will lead to the improvement of each decision; (2) the cooperation between one retailer and the manufacturer benefits the supply chain extremely; (3) the cooperation between two retailers is detrimental to the consumer utility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]