Car Manufacturers from Ferrari to GM Turn Their Energies from Engine Design to Electric Car Motor Design
Car manufacturers are in a bit of a spot. These days are a watershed for companies whose entire operational strategy, depends on the internal combustion engine. The companies that have spent the last century perfecting their take on the internal combustion engine, have taken it from mere engineering to an art form. The Corvette's engine looks, sounds, feels, growls and drives completely differently from a similarly specified Hummer engine or a Porsche. The way they perform and behave are their signature, their character, and their claim to a market share. Vehicle propulsion technology is changing, and permanently now. Mercedes-Benz has a hybrid S class now, and Ferrari is designing its own electric car motor for its next supercar. The world is going hybrid and electric, and car manufacturers are in a position where they have to scramble to make sure they don't lose their place in a world where cars may still look like cars, but on the outside only. Of the technologies that the car manufacturers have honed over decades, engine design, fuel efficiency, transmission, just about the only things they're going to be able to use in the new cars of the future, are body design and the suspension.
Research is on at GM into building an electric car motor, that is supposed to demonstrate character, a tangible feeling of something GM to it. If you think about it, there is very little to an electric motor. It generates electromotive force, and turns the wheels of the car. Sometimes, on some of the more advanced models, more than one motor could come to be used, but that is all. They expect that in just a few years, manufacturers will need to set up the facilities to make millions of units of electric car motor every year. And the rising demand is well evidence now. In just the way that manufacturers have always held on to their engine design as their crown jewels, as the core technology that defines them, they will need to define their relationship with the electric car motors they design in the same way. You can't just import a generic motor from China. And you can't contract with a big electric motor manufacturer to keep you supplied, either. The car manufacturers do not want to be reduced to being assemblers of other people's components. Every major automaker in the world, Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes Benz has its own electric car motor research facility in place.
And you can see it's all falling into place now. The electric car motor requires all new components and materials, that traditional car design has never required. The major manufacturers are shopping hard for companies that have the technology and the connections they need. As much as you would think that the car manufacturers would be all aflutter with anxiety at having to compete in areas they know nothing about. It isn't them who are anxious. It is the traditional manufacturers and designer of electric motors that are beginning to feel threatened.
How are BMW, or Porsche going to port their street cred, their performance feel, to the electric car motor? We will just have to wait, for exciting developments soon.