An Intellectual Structure Analysis of Electric Vehicle Research Using Bibliometric Techniques (2015–2025)

Abstract

The recent emphasis of the world on sustainable transportation, carbon emission reduction, and renewable energy source usage, there has been considerable expansion in EV research in the last decade. In this paper, an extensive bibliometric analysis of the knowledge structure, trends, citations, collaboration, and themes of the literature covering the period between 2015 and 2025 was carried out for further analysis of the EV research domain. The bibliographic data used in this study were collected from the Scopus database and analyzed with the help of Bibliometrix (Biblioshiny) and VOSviewer in order to perform performance analysis and science mapping. This data collection involves 8,864 papers with a total of 241,843 citations and indicates rapid development and increasing scientific significance of EV research. 30.16% of all the papers belong to the category "international collaboration," with China, the USA, and India being the key contributors to this area. On the basis of the thematic analysis, it can be said that there has been a move away from the earlier research themes of battery technology and charging stations to the themes of integration with renewable energy, smart grids, vehicle-to-grid, battery recycling, sustainable mobility, and intelligent energy management. The findings provide an overall view of the evolution of research on EVs, identify research actors and emerging research topics in the field, and highlight research gaps.