The main goal of this article is to analyze the recent evolution of the technological innovation process in the automobile industry. A provisional assumption is that could be happened changes on the auto industry technical innovation process. The starting point is the observation that, in the last years, there have been both - probably as consequence of the sectorial competition intensification and the higher technological opportunity - an amplification of the expenses in R&D as well as an increasing incorporation of the microelectronics, in the products and in the productive processes, by the automobile industry. Finally, some considerations are made, aiming at relating the obtained results in this article with the discussion of the de-maturity industrial process proposed by Abernathy and other authors.
Brazil; Technological innovation; Multinational firms; International competitiveness
