Cymat Technologies said it had entered into an OEM component development agreement with an undisclosed “global automotive manufacturer”.
The supplier and its design consultant, Tesseract Structural Innovations, has been retained to redesign a structural element (14 parts) within an existing electric vehicle (EV) battery enclosure.
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By integrating SmartMetal, Cymat’s proprietary aluminium foam, into the component, the new design is expected to optimise performance by reducing weight, improving crash resistance, minimising manufacturing complexity and creating cost savings for the OEM.
“This opportunity is the culmination of almost a year’s work of exploring potential solutions for the OEM’s challenges with EV battery enclosure systems,” Cymat said in a statement.
The first phase of the agreement stipulates completion of conceptual design together with verification of performance through computer simulation.
Cymat subsequently will be required to produce physical prototypes for the OEM to validate simulation results. Once physical crash testing by the OEM is successfully completed and other production/pricing related issues agreed to, Cymat expects a serial production contract.
“As this component is common to a number of vehicle platforms and would be treated as a running change, the potential volume of SmartMetal together with the compressed timeline to production, management views this opportunity as being transformational for Cymat,” the supplier added.
“The OEM has also indicated an interest in having Cymat/Tesseract evaluate other elements of their battery enclosure for performance enhancement.”
CEO Michael Liik said: “This has been a long time coming and I am excited that Cymat has finally broken into the automotive sector. Our material is ideally suited for the complex challenges faced by EV manufacturers. Consequently, we are now seeing interest from numerous auto parts companies and auto manufacturers around the world. This development contract vindicates our strategy of focusing on electric vehicle battery enclosure performance, an area still very much in its infancy.”
