The advancement of powertrain technology from the age of the internal combustion engine to the era of Electric Drive, became inevitable with the introduction of strict, mainly environmental, regulations. Consequently, the question facing OEMs, EV start-ups and suppliers is not ‘should we do it’ but ‘how quickly?’ – How can we make our Electric Drive more efficient, powerful, flexible, reliable, sustainable and quieter than our competitors?
It is urgent. The quickest route to development is also the quickest route to profit. And, at a time when most businesses are investing more money than they are making, finding the right route is vital. Hence ‘EVolution’ is not just a matter of survival of the fittest but also of the fastest: businesses that are first to embrace digitalization will speed up the cycles of eDrive improvement – compressing industry maturity into 10 years what took 100 years of internal combustion engine development.
Niche solutions won’t work
One of the biggest challenges is having to retrain engineering teams to design and produce Electric Drives that not only require mechanical expertise, but also electro-magnetic and electronic know-how. How do you get all these specialists – in areas such as Structures, Thermal and Fluids – to work together effectively?
That’s why niche solutions won’t be successful in the Electric Drive era. Instead, the answer is to identify a development platform that will better integrate all EV engineering disciplines and provide strategic performance insights in a holistic way.
You need solutions that enable innovation to achieve a seamless, accelerated transition to electric vehicles and allow businesses to speed up their own development cycles by working smarter. For example, how can a designer of high-calibre geometric models work in parallel with a simulation expert – or perhaps even run part of that simulation themselves?