With an eye toward greatly expanding its all-electric vehicle lineup, Ford has also been working to build more EV parts in-house. Back in 2019, the automaker announced that it would be building electric motors at the Van Dyke Transmission plant – which was later renamed the Van Dyke Electric Powertrain Center – and is also producing EV drive units at the Halewood Transmission Plant in the UK thanks to a large investment. Though EVs require less labor to produce than ICE-powered vehicles, Ford CEO Jim Farley recently stated that building these parts in-house is one way to preserve jobs versus outsourcing that work, and that’s one of the reasons why Volkswagen is following suit.
VW has announced that it will be developing and building its own EV drive units, a major move that figures to help it save money in the long run. In addition to batteries and electric motors, that list will now include pulse inverters – which are the “brain” of the electric drivetrain and are largely responsible for efficiency and performance, as well as thermal management systems.
VW is working to improve the efficiency of the latter by making them more compact and integrated, while those units will also control the vehicle’s air conditioning system – including for the high-voltage battery – and thus, will have a major impact on the vehicle’s range and fast-charging capability. The new all-in-one module is also significantly lighter, more robust, and more efficient than current systems.
“Our goal is to achieve technological leadership, also in electric mobility,” said Thomas Schmall, a member of the Volkswagen Group Board of Management responsible for technology. “That’s why here, too, we rely on our internal competencies and, after battery cells and electric motors, we are taking over the development of pulse inverters and thermal management systems. In future, this will make the Volkswagen Group one of the only car manufacturers in the world that’s able to offer a holistically optimised complete system.”
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Comments
VW electronics are crap as it is right now…i would pass on a vw ev
Perhaps… although Ford would disagree with your bad mouthing their new date.
VW has always built good looking and daring product… that alone is more than enough to distinguish them from all their competition.