Daimler Truck & Gehring announce electric truck cooperation
Daimler Truck and Gehring Technologies have agreed on a strategic partnership for the commercial vehicle-specific application of electric motors. This includes the prototypical construction of so-called “truck-e-fied” electric drives as well as the further development and testing of new production processes.
How exactly these “truck-e-fied” electric drives will differ from the current electric drive units of Daimler Truck’s electric trucks or even drive systems for electric cars is not specified in the announcement. It says that Gehring’s portfolio includes production technology for manufacturing traction drives in electrified vehicles. “These designs combine efficient electric motor characteristics with high automation capability and process reproducibility – essential prerequisites for large-scale automotive production,” Daimler Truck wrote.
It is known that the supplier relies primarily on hairpin technology for the stator. Here, solid copper rods in the eponymous hairpin shape form the coils for the electromagnet of the stator, which ensures a higher copper filling level compared to coils made of wound copper wire – and thus a higher energy density. However, it is not clear from the press release announcing the cooperation by when Daimler Truck plans to use such drive units in its electric trucks.
As part of the cooperation, the Stuttgart-based Gehring will also supply equipment for the technical centre that is being set up at the Gaggenau plant, Daimler Truck’s competence centre for electric drive components. Last year, Daimler Truck and the Works Council agreed on key points for the future orientation of the aggregate plants. The three sites in Gaggenau, Kassel and Mannheim specialize in different components for electrified drive systems.
“As part of the future target pictures of our German Powersystems sites, the InnoLabs play an important role: analyzing the powertrains of the future in terms of their commercial vehicle specific application as well as testing innovative production methods and processes,” says Yaris Pürsün, head of global production of powertrain components at Daimler Truck. “The agreement with Gehring for “truck-e-fied” e-motors is an important component here.”
Bernd Nagel, partner and CEO of the Gehring Group, added: “For a long time, we have experienced that coordinated development of products and manufacturing processes at an early stage leads to high-performance production systems. We are all the more pleased to be able to work with Daimler Truck to deepen our hairpin technologies specifically for the electric powertrain of trucks and buses.”
As part of the partnership concluded in May with the engineering company Manz, Daimler Truck will set up its own pilot production facility for battery cells in the form of the “InnoLab Battery” located at the Mannheim plant.
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