The supplier ZF has started series production of the electric central drive CeTrax lite. The new driveline is suitable for use in light commercial vehicles up to 7.5 tons. ZF says it has already received orders for the CeTrax from Asia and America.
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Volkswagen Group Components is expanding its plant in Kassel in central Germany, opening a new competence centre for power electronics there. It will bundle all areas relevant to the development of pulse inverters for e-drives. At the same time, the site is preparing to produce the new APP 550 electric drive.
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Continental is expanding its sensor portfolio for the electromobility market with the new inductive high-speed electric drive rotation position sensor (eRPS). This detects the exact position of the rotor in an electric synchronous motor.
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BorgWarner is expanding its 400V inverter business with a major global OEM by now supplying 800V silicon carbide-based (SiC) inverters. The high-voltage inverters are destined for BEV platforms.
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Nidec Leroy-Somer has been contracted by Airbus to develop electric motors for a future hydrogen-electric propulsion system. The prototypes are to meet “very high requirements in terms of safety, reliability, energy efficiency and weight”.
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British company Kleanbus has announced the completion of the development of its first advanced modular electric platform, installing the pioneering system into its first prototype vehicle.
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Daimler Truck is preparing to exit the business with combustion engines through a cooperation with the engine manufacturer Deutz. The background to this is that Daimler Truck no longer wants to invest in the further development of medium-duty Euro 7 motors in view of its e-mobility ambitions.
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The US electric car manufacturer Lucid Motors has revealed itself as the supplier of the front electric motors in the current Gen3 racing cars of Formula E. The drive unit now presented by Lucid for motorsport has an output of 350 kW and consists of a motor, inverter, differential and gearbox.
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Honda has announced the establishment of a new division to strengthen its electrification business within its organisational structure and accelerate development. This will be done not only for the car division, but also for the two-wheeler and powertrain business.
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Nissan is planning a US$250 million investment in its Decherd engine plant in the US state of Tennessee to support the electrification of its product range, according to its CEO Makoto Uchida. This is apparently to increase the production of electric drives in the US.
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Mercedes-Benz has announced various new appointments in top management, affecting Level 1 below the Group Board of Management. Among others, Christoph Starzynski, currently Head of Development Electric Drive, will assume responsibility for the overall vehicle development of all Mercedes-Benz passenger car series as of 1 July 2023.
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Bosch has announced that it will invest around one billion US dollars over several years in the development and production of components for electromobility and automated driving in China – and will build a centre for research, development and production in Suzhou for this purpose.
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The Swedish state-owned mining company LKAB says it has identified significant deposits of rare earth metals that are needed for electric cars and wind turbines, among other things. Mining on a larger scale will potentially first be possible in several years’ time.
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Toyota has announced a €77 million investment in the production of fifth-generation hybrid powertrains at its plants in Poland and the UK. The powertrain will be used for the first time in the new Corolla.
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As part of the now successfully completed European cooperation project ‘Power2Power’, 43 partners from industry and research have jointly developed novel power semiconductors with higher power density and energy efficiency over the past three years. A follow-up project will start in January.
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Seat announces that in future it will also produce components for electric cars at its transmission plant in El Prat De Llobregat near Barcelona. Together with Martorell and Barcelona, the Seat Components plant is one of the Spanish brand’s three production centres.
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On the way to a purely electric vehicle range by the end of the decade, Mercedes-Benz has now made important decisions for drive production. This means that it has been decided in which plants the drive units and battery systems will be assembled.
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The Japanese industrial group Nidec has opened a development centre for its electric drive division in the Bulgarian capital Sofia. The main purpose of the centre is to develop inverters for vehicles and onboard chargers.
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Mercedes-Benz wants to double its production capacities for electric drives at the Untertürkheim plant. Previously, up to 500,000 units per year were to be produced there, but now the Stuttgart company is aiming for output in the order of up to one million units per year.
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BMW has launched preparations to produce the next generation of electric drive systems at its engine plant in Steyr from 2025. In concrete terms, BMW has begun to set the course in terms of personnel and organisation. Meanwhile in the USA, the plug-in hybrid SUV BMW XM is now rolling off the production line.
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Volvo has extensively revised the drive systems of its electric models XC40 and C40. In the all-wheel drive models, an asynchronous motor replaces the previously used permanent synchronous motor on the front axle. The new motor layout of the all-wheel-drive models also has consequences for the single-motor models.
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BMW is investing in the US company Jetti Resources to promote the responsible and resource-conserving mining of copper. Copper is one of the key raw materials in the production of electric drive systems.
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Toyota is to develop a fuel cell version of its Hilux pick-up truck with financial support from the British government and set up a pilot production line for it at its plant in Derbyshire, UK.
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The German supplier ZF has presented a new generation of electric drives for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. With numerous innovations at the component and system level, these are to “set standards with outstanding power density and energy efficiency”.
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Nidec is planning to build an electric axle factory in Mexico. The company currently produces electric axles in China and Europe and wants to manufacture them in Mexico in the future in view of an expected surge in demand in North America.
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The accelerated transformation of vehicle drives towards electromobility is leading to overcapacities at Schaeffler for products for combustion vehicles. For this reason and to reduce fixed costs, the automotive supplier is now announcing the elimination of a total of 1,300 jobs by the end of 2026.
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The German automotive supplier ZF will convert its transmission plant in Saarbrücken into a lead location for pure electric drives and has announced that it will invest a three-digit million sum for this purpose. Electric drive production is scheduled to start there in 2024.
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Knorr-Bremse has invested in the Chinese electric motor supplier Bobang and in return receives a company share of approximately 13 per cent. In addition to the investment, Knorr-Bremse is also planning development projects with Bobang.
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Chinese battery manufacturer CATL is developing a skateboard chassis that integrates battery packs, electric motors and other components. The CATL Integrated Intelligent Chassis (CIIC) is expected to be ready for series production shortly. A first potential customer has already been found with VinFast.
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The Chinese electric car manufacturer Aiways wants to work with partners in Europe to take back and recycle end-of-life vehicles and batteries, including accident vehicles. For the German market, Aiways has entered into a cooperation agreement with the vehicle recycler Priorec.
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