Project-based learning patterns for dominant design renewal: The case of Electric Vehicle Christophe Midler * , Romain Beaume Centre de Recherche en Gestion de l’Ecole Polytechnique, 32 rue Descartes, 75739 Paris Cedex 15, France Received 30 July 2009; received in revised form 15 October 2009; accepted 20 October 2009 Abstract The increasing environmental concerns call for deep renewals in existing technologies and traditional design solutions in many indus- tries. Electric Vehicle (EV) is emblematic of such a radical shift. Based on case studies and an action research within an on going project, this article analyses how project-based learning can question such a dominant design. After a brief history of past EV failures, we focus on what should be addressed to prevent the current projects from being just another bubble. We characterize the four projects-based learning patterns experimented in the 1990s and 2000s: concept car projects, derivative projects, vanguard development projects, and multi-projects concurrent programs. We analyse how the last two project-based learning patterns succeed to address the dominant design renewal challenges. We demonstrate that they develop different linkages between innovative projects and permanent departments of the firms. We show that multi-project concurrent program reduces dramatically the deployment lead-time of the new industrial paradigm. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved. Keywords: Electric Vehicle; Projects and programs; Organizational learning; Innovation management; Radical innovation; Sustainable development; Auto industry 1. Introduction Environmental concerns call for deep renewals in exist- ing technologies and traditional design solutions in many industries. The purpose of this article is to analyse how to renew a dominant design through projects. The empirical context we study is the automotive industry, an emblematic example of a heavy dominant design of the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE). Electric Vehicles (EV) or Hybrid Vehicles (HV) are challenging this dominant design. Although they are not totally new technological options, the numerous past attempts to introduce them as a compet- itive mass-market option have failed for nearly a century. Is the ongoing EV/HV revival just another occurrence of a “permanently emerging technology” syndrome, as charac- terized by Fre ´ry (2000)? Or is it, at last, the beginning of a large scale roll-out of EV? The literature on strategy has emphasized the impor- tance of the dominant design concept to understand inno- vation trajectories on product as well as technology. A dominant design is embedded in product architecture, tech- nology, usage specifications through regulations as well as design rules, customers’ practices or performance criteria. Utterback (1994) showed that dominant designs create collective patterns which facilitate the development of sus- taining innovations and increase the value of previous investments. Therefore, breaking the dominant design has to be analysed not only as the result of a competition between fuel efficiency and alternative technologies, but as a deep renewal of the path dependant track including customers practices and values, designers competences, ecosystems perimeters, regulations, etc. To make an anal- ogy with the analysis made by Kuhn (1963) of the scientific field, escaping from the dominant design can be seen as an industrial paradigm shift. This implies analysing these shifts in terms of learning processes within the organizations and social contexts. 0263-7863/$36.00 Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2009.10.006 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 1 45 52 47 97; fax: +33 1 45 52 45 13. E-mail address: christophe.midler@polytechnique.edu (C. Midler). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com International Journal of Project Management 28 (2010) 142–150 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman