Vitesco Technologies gets €2 billion order from Hyundai to deliver EMR4 axle drive

Further expanding its axle drive business, Hamburg, Germany based Vitesco Technologies has announced that the company has secured a €2 billion contract to supply its new generation axle drive EMR4 (Electronics Motor Reducer) to Hyundai Motor Group. In March, Vitesco Technologies had announced about the very order in its annual press conference but the name of Hyundai Motor was not mentioned.

The official statement of Vitesco holds that the highly integrated 400 V/160 kW 3-in-1 unit will be used by the vehicle manufacturer Hyundai in its global B and C segment electric vehicle. Vitesco is a leading international supplier of modern drive technologies and electrification solutions.

Andreas Wolf, CEO of Vitesco Technologies, said, “We are proud to contribute to Hyundai Motor Group’s upcoming electric vehicle platform with this highly attractive axle drive. This order once again confirms us in our strategy with the very early focus on electric mobility.”

Vitesco claims the new axle technology as a state-of-the-art one. The powertrain is a core component of an electric car as it greatly influences its range and this asks for a high level of efficiency and power density. Also, the electric drive has to be as compact and lightweight as possible to integrate easily into vehicle designs that make use of the new degrees of freedom electromobility opens up. Vitesco says that EMR4 is built on the enabling groundwork, laid with EMR3. The silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductors in the inverter of the drive platform, for example, have played a significant role in this.

Vitesco also claims that the new axle drive design supports a particularly high level of scalability as EMR4 can help complete vehicle platforms and also different vehicle segments to be equipped with just one drive system.

Thomas Stierle, member of the Executive Board and head of the Electrification Technology business unit at Vitesco Technologies, said, “For our new electric axle drive, we have standardised the internal interfaces, while generating the greatest possible flexibility externally, so that we can offer customised and at the same time cost-optimised solutions.”