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Daily Newsletter

09 October 2023

Daily Newsletter

Continental joins with DeepDrive on EV driveline parts

DeepDrive has developed a dual rotor, radial flux motor which can be used for central drive or as a wheel hub drive

Continental has agreed with Munich based tech company DeepDrive to develop technology for electric vehicles.

The companies would initially jointly develop a combined unit comprising drive and brake components for mounting directly on the vehicle wheel.

DeepDrive has developed and patented a dual rotor, radial flux motor which can be installed as a central drive unit or as a wheel hub drive.

Continental would contribute brake components and said the motor would be road-ready with brake technology soon.

Integration in one unit would enable a particularly high level of efficiency in the drive and when braking.

Integration would also reduce complexity through modularisation and facilitate manufacturing.

In the first step, a hydraulic brake is integrated into the drive brake unit. Long term, it is also planned to integrate dry braking systems without hydraulic components into the wheel hub drive.

Continental said the combination of drive and brake in one unit is a first step towards a corner module with integrated chassis components in a compact unit mounted directly on the wheel.

High upfront costs could be detrimental towards the growth of the off-highway EV market

The global off-highway electric market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.4% by 2030, per GlobalData. Despite the strong growth, high upfront costs may pose a challenge. Due to the high capacity of these vehicles, they consume large amounts of power from a number of battery packs installed on the vehicle, whose high cost in turn adds to the cost of the vehicle, thereby increasing the initial cost. However, governments worldwide are offering subsidies and tax exemptions in order to help customers to counter the initial purchase cost.