Abstract: Core competence is the footstone of competence advantage. Based on the thoughts of the comprehensive advantage theory, this paper reveals formation mechanism of strategic emerging industry core competence based on leading advantage by the methods of interpretive case study and patentometric embedded to investigate the new energy vehicles’ development history in China. The results show that, firstly, the industry core competence keeps improving from imitational innovation competence of niche product, independent development competence of product seriation to industry synergy innovation competence of full expansion, accompanying with leading advantage’s three-stage dynamic evolution which goes through scattered fragments network, single hub-and-spoke network and multi-hub small world network; secondly, Both core competence and leading advantage evolve with comprehensive advantage developing simultaneously; thirdly, the strategic emerging industry leading advantage upgrades and core competence accumulates continuously on the forces of innovation-driven, demand-pulled and policy guided. This research aims to provide theory guide and decision reference for strategic emerging industry core competence foster and comprehensive advantage strategy management based on core competence.

Key words: strategic emerging industry, leading advantage, core competence, new energy vehicles