Research Topic

Short Title	IFKE
Start of Project	Q1/2025
Funding	Projektträger Karlsruhe, FKZ 02P24K124 Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF
Project Partners	ARI Motors GmbH Schwarz Elektromotoren GmbH Werner Bauser GmbH
Contact	Dr.-Ing. T. Tobie

Project Description

For manufacturers of small electric vehicles, such as those used for urban delivery traffic, there is a significant demand for compact, cost-effective, and highly integrated drive units that can serve as complete solutions (e-motor, gearbox, inverter) with appropriately simple interfaces, adaptable to the respective vehicle concept. The market situation is characterized by a variety of niche solutions with highly diverse requirements for drive units, which are currently addressed by startups and established vehicle manufacturers, primarily SMEs.

A major obstacle to the development of new vehicle types and the scaling of business models is the fragmented supply sources for individual drive components, often involving cumbersome supply chains, long delivery times, and challenging communication conditions with various component suppliers. This hinders the market penetration of innovative electric vehicles.

For appropriately integrated drives, attributes such as performance, durability/longevity, noise behavior, and efficiency are of critical importance. Additionally, these units must be economically viable for the drive provider to manufacture and cost-effective for vehicle builders to ensure competitiveness, particularly against Far Eastern competitors. Both requirements can only be met through high production volumes, which—given the diversity of vehicle solutions—can be achieved through a modular system for electric vehicle drives.

On the market side, project partner ARI brings its expertise as a developer and manufacturer of small electric delivery and passenger vehicles.

The use of plastic as an innovative material offers a promising approach for the realization of such drives. Plastic is increasingly gaining importance in machine elements, such as gears. Compared to conventional steel gears, plastic gears offer several attractive properties, including low material density, corrosion resistance, good damping characteristics, the unique design potential of plastic, and, most notably, the possibility of cost-efficient mass production of parts via injection molding.